The Political SwordFor putting politicians and commentators to the verbal swordhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/
http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specificationBlogEngine.NET 2.5.0.6en-UShttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/opml.axdhttp://www.dotnetblogengine.net/syndication.axdAd astraThe Political Sword0.0000000.000000But we’ve done tax reform – haven’t we? (Part 2)<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000000;"><br /> Last week we briefly looked at some of the problems with the current tax system. It seems that a number of those who should have a high level of understanding of the fundamental flaws in the current taxation system agree that the system needs reform. <br /><br /> Price Waterhouse Coopers <a href="http://www.pwc.com.au/tax/tax-reform/index.htm">suggest</a>:<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">. . . there is a clear need for comprehensive tax reform &mdash; done the right way. The &lsquo;right way' means increasing those taxes that have the least effect on investment and employment, and at the same time reducing reliance on taxes that distort incentives to work, invest and transact business. It also means addressing those factors which increase the complexity of the tax system and the cost of compliance. <br /><br /></div>
<em>Business Spectator</em> <a href="http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/9/12/tax/australia-cant-run-away-tax-reform">reports</a>:<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">Without widespread tax reform, the Australian government faces a prolonged period of sluggish wage growth and poor productivity. That might sound pessimistic but that&rsquo;s the simple equation laid out by outgoing Australian Treasury secretary Dr Martin Parkinson. <br /><br /></div>
Peter van Onselen wrote in <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/government-must-be-prepared-to-fight-for-tax-reform/story-fn53lw5p-1227010562041"><em>The Australian</em></a> (pay walled): <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">To the extent that consensus among tax professionals on the best way to collect revenue can be found, broad-based taxes are preferable to direct taxes. That&rsquo;s because direct taxes such as income tax fall victim to bracket creep and stifle productivity. They feed into higher wages, too, which can affect inflation and Australia&rsquo;s international competitiveness adversely. <br /><br /> But broad-based consumption taxes such as the GST can be regressive, in so far as they hurt lower-income families disproportionately to higher-income families given their flat application. <br /><br /> But this is a situation that can be easily overcome, is generally overstated and certainly isn&rsquo;t a reason to abandon GST reform, which must be tackled boldly by our political leaders. It is always possible for policy decision-makers to make up for regressive GST application on the spending side. <br /><br /></div>
Firstly, lets discuss the difference between &lsquo;broad based&rsquo; and &lsquo;direct&rsquo; taxes. <br /><br /> A &lsquo;broad based&rsquo; tax is something like the Medicare levy. Everyone who pays tax pays a percentage based on their level of income to fund the &lsquo;free universal&rsquo; healthcare system supported by the government. Distortions exist to &lsquo;manufacture&rsquo; compliance with various social policies such as the surcharge made to those on higher incomes without private health insurance. GST is another &lsquo;broad based&rsquo; tax: as the value of the tax is based, however, on the goods or services being purchased, rather than people&rsquo;s incomes, someone on $40,000 per annum proportionally pays a higher rate of tax than someone on $140,000 per annum should they decide to purchase the same product. This distribution effect can be &lsquo;engineered&rsquo; out through use of rebates etc. &mdash; as was promised with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Carbon Tax). <br /><br /> Direct taxes are charges such as income tax. You pay a certain percentage based on your income. While someone who is in the fortunate position to pay tax on the highest &lsquo;margin&rsquo; pays more dollars than someone on the lowest margin, the person on the lower margin usually contributes a greater value of their annual income. <br /><br /> So, according to the experts, the problem is the complexity and &lsquo;side effects&rsquo; of the current tax system: to fix the problems, move to broad based taxes based on equitable criteria and simplify the system. Sounds reasonably easy, doesn&rsquo;t it? <br /><br /> This is where the politics comes in. In 1975, Asprey and Parsons handed over the full report of the <a href="http://adc.library.usyd.edu.au/data-2/p00087.pdf">Taxation Review Committee</a>. The Asprey Report received little attention from Whitlam or Fraser: it did contain, however, discussion around the major taxation reforms of the 1980&rsquo;s and 1990&rsquo;s (capital gains, dividend imputation and GST to name a few). <br /><br /> The Rudd/Gillard government commissioned Ken Henry, former treasury secretary, to perform another review of the taxation system in 2010. Henry&rsquo;s review (which was told not to look at the GST &mdash; one would assume for political reasons) suggested a number of reforms to improve the taxation system. The politics surrounding the review was that &lsquo;a package&rsquo; would be recommended. Ken Henry obviously disagreed. The Henry Review <a href="http://taxreview.treasury.gov.au/content/FinalReport.aspx?doc=html/publications/papers/Final_Report_Part_1/executive_summary.htm">advised</a>: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">The review has aimed to set strategic directions for the future architecture of the Australian tax and transfer system. It has not produced a one-off tax policy package, and it has not advanced the detailed design or timing of measures. Indeed, it is neither possible nor desirable to make all of these changes (138 recommendations) too quickly. <br /><br /></div>
In the words of <a href="https://taxpolicy.crawford.anu.edu.au/files/uploads/taxstudies_crawford_anu_edu_au/2014-07/dr_john_hewson.pdf">John Hewson</a>: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">. . .those expectations were there, so when they were thwarted, the Review was all too easily dismissed, politically, as &ldquo;just another study/review/inquiry&rdquo;, easily essentially shelved by the media, although [the government] also all too easily &ldquo;cherry-picked&rdquo; with attempts to implement just a handful of its recommendations. <br /><br /> Against this background, the [then ALP] government only picked some &ldquo;high profile&rdquo; recommendations immediately, such as the mining tax, and when that backfired, it then only did smaller issues, quietly, leaving the bigger issues like savings and State taxes untouched. <br /><br /></div>
Hewson goes on to note that the Rudd/Gillard government implemented 40 of the Henry Review&rsquo;s recommendations but the Abbott government has since reversed the implementation of all but seven of them &mdash; without identifying the recommendations came from the Henry Review. <br /><br /> This piece started with a comment from an accountancy/business services firm (Price Waterhouse Coopers) stating what it believes is necessary. Not to be outdone, others have expressed their opinion as well, including <a href="http://www.ey.com/AU/en/Services/Tax/EY-tax-reform---a-better-way---overview">Ernst &amp; Young</a>, <em>The Conversation</em> <a href="http://theconversation.com/increase-the-gst-to-20-yes-but-i-wouldnt-recommend-it-16953">here</a> and <a href="http://theconversation.com/raise-the-gst-the-conversation-we-have-to-have-25202">here</a>, the <a href="http://hia.com.au/en/IndustryPolicy/Tax%20reform.aspx">Housing Industry Association</a>, Newscorp&rsquo;s <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/government-must-be-prepared-to-fight-for-tax-reform/story-fn53lw5p-1227010562041"><em>The Australian</em></a> (pay walled) and <a href="http://www.prosper.org.au/2014/11/18/australias-twin-economic-diseases/">Prosper</a>, an organisation that has been campaigning for a century for a greater reliance on property taxes to replace direct taxes. There are no doubt others as well &mdash; time precludes finding them and space from listing them. <br /><br /> Each group that enters the tax reform debate overtly or covertly expresses an opinion that would assist their members or customers &mdash; as is their right. It certainly doesn&rsquo;t help any government in designing a fair and equitable solution for all of society, especially when affected industry groups commission and use selected facts in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CREUOpaVYJQ">television advertising</a> that certainly don&rsquo;t mention that compensation to taxpayers was a part of the deal. <br /><br /> Politically and economically, tax reform is a hard ask. Hawke/Keating and Howard/Costello both were successful to a degree in implementing reforms to the Australian taxation system. There are also those that suggest the whole system should be replaced by &lsquo;flat taxes&rsquo;. <br /><br /> Of course there are a number of versions of &lsquo;flat tax&rsquo; from the &lsquo;pure&rsquo; &mdash; everyone pays a percentage of their income with no deductions or rebates allowed &mdash; through to systems that allow deductions, negative taxes and other arrangements. Wikipedia discusses some of the different versions <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax">here</a>.<br /><br /> The economics editor of <em>The Australian</em> argues that &lsquo;flat tax&rsquo; is an economic <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/why-we-need-a-flat-rate-of-tax/story-e6frg9if-1226793364892?nk=6cad496213f6c043677e173769ce1131">necessity</a> (pay walled). In 2010, Abbott, then opposition leader, suggested a version of flat tax would be beneficial and commented it was recommended by the Henry Review. The ALP <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-10-29/abbotts-flat-tax-reform-unfair/2317016">disagreed</a>. Greg Jericho, writing on ABC&rsquo;s <em>The Drum</em> website, suggests that &lsquo;Unless you&rsquo;re wealthy, you&rsquo;re not going to like <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-17/jericho---tax-policy/4633144">flat taxes</a>&rsquo;. Jericho makes the point that flat taxes are by their nature regressive, as they are a &lsquo;broad based&rsquo; tax. <br /><br /> Remember the disparity in the actual proportion of a person&rsquo;s income when buying a product we looked at a couple of hundred words ago? Twenty per cent of $140,000 is $28,000 and 20% of $40,000 is $8,000. So the person on $140,000 still has $118,000 per annum to spend while the person on $40,000 only has $32,000. Regardless of the dollar amounts, the person on the lower income is paying more <em>value from their income</em> when a broad based tax (such as a GST or &lsquo;flat income&rsquo; tax) is levied. Certainly there can be some &lsquo;engineering&rsquo; of the tax system so that the value contributed by both the higher and lower income earner can be made fairer but that is adding to the cost of managing the tax revenue and reduces the &lsquo;purity&rsquo; of the revenue collection system. <br /><br /> Hewson, in <a href="https://taxpolicy.crawford.anu.edu.au/files/uploads/taxstudies_crawford_anu_edu_au/2014-07/dr_john_hewson.pdf">his paper</a>, suggests that Hawke/Keating achieved some tax reform because they crafted a message supporting the need for change to the then system by way of the &lsquo;Tax Summit&rsquo; and demonstrating that change would reduce the level of tax evasion, such as the &lsquo;bottom of the harbour&rsquo; scheme that was apparent in the 1970&rsquo;s and 80&rsquo;s. He also claims that his &ldquo;Fightback&rdquo; package, that was taken to the 1993 election, was the subject of various campaigns to create fear, uncertainty and desperation. To an extent, it is a fair call. Hewson also suggests that 1% of tax revenue is taken by the administration of the tax revenue system &mdash; demonstrating its complexity. <br /><br /> It seems that a simplified revenue collection system is a given to make our taxes work harder. Another factor that needs to be considered is the current rhetoric from political parties of all colours that the country&rsquo;s budget is closely related to a household budget and has to either balance or be in surplus. <br /><br /> To simplify the current revenue collection system, tax reform is needed. If tax reform is discussed, every &lsquo;special interest&rsquo; group in the country will have its say in an attempt to protect the interests of their members/customers. While &lsquo;flat taxes&rsquo; are superficially attractive, they do have a tendency to favour those earning a higher income unless &lsquo;engineering&rsquo; is performed to make the tax impost fairer (in which case what is the point of a nominally one-size-fits-all &lsquo;flat tax&rsquo; system?). <br /><br /> Something that recent governments have painted themselves into a corner on is the mythology that the country&rsquo;s budget is similar to a household budget and must be balanced or in surplus. It doesn&rsquo;t &mdash; as Australia issues it&rsquo;s own currency. <em>The Conversation</em> recently discussed &lsquo;<a href="http://theconversation.com/why-the-federal-budget-is-not-like-a-household-budget-35498">Why the Federal Budget is not like a household budget</a>&rsquo; and noted: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">The real calculation faced by government should not be about how much money the government has &mdash; it has an infinite amount. The calculation should be about the capacity of the economy to absorb government spending without driving inflation. <br /><br /> Seeking a balanced budget and automatically borrowing any deficit spending (as we currently do) is an effective but unsophisticated way of ensuring government spending doesn&rsquo;t cause runaway inflation. Taxes and government borrowing remove money from the private sector, creating space for government spending (which injects money into the private sector). Remember, the government does not have to borrow or tax in order to finance spending because they can create money. <br /><br /></div>
<em>The Political Sword</em> has previously looked at the fallacy of the balanced budget debate <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/08/10/default.aspx">here</a> and <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/08/17/default.aspx">here</a>. Peter Costello (former treasurer) not unsurprisingly has a comment on the difficulty of balancing budgets versus <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-17/costello-says-tax-reform-harder-than-balancing-budget/5974576">tax reform</a>: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">This is harder than balancing a budget and I've done both. <br /><br /></div>
John Hewson&rsquo;s push to become prime minister in 1993 failed due in part to a lack of understanding of his tax reform measures. John Howard found that he could not pass the GST without diluting the &lsquo;purity&rsquo; of the tax to appease the Australian Democrats; Julia Gillard had to negotiate to get a &lsquo;watered-down version&rsquo; of the Mining Tax through the Senate. So far, Abbott&rsquo;s government has not demonstrated that it can negotiate well enough to ensure that the minor parties and independents in the Senate would commit to a package of reasoned and logical tax reform. <br /><br /> During October 2014, Abbott called for a <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-calls-for-mature-debate-on-gst-20141027-11ch8h.html"><em>mature debate</em></a> on inter-governmental relations in general and the GST in particular. It is unlikely to happen until either the current government learns how to build a consensus as Hawke and Howard did or has the numbers and the motivation to do something for the common good. Either way a mature debate cannot be conducted in 30 second sound bites so loved by our current prime minister and the media. <br /><br /> <strong>What do you think?</strong><br /><br /> <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/TPS-Authors.aspx#2353">About 2353</a><br /><br />
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<td><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #0000ff;"> This week 2353 completes his &lsquo;Tax reform&rsquo; discussion and paints the political difficulties of achieving tax reform. As he writes, almost everyone agrees we need tax reform but we don&rsquo;t seem able to come to agreement on what should be done. Please tell us your views of tax reform and how we can achieve it.<br /><br /> Come back next week for Ken&rsquo;s view of "President Abbott: or why prime ministers should be not immune from removal by their party".<br /> </span></td>
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<p><br /><br /></p>http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/03/01/But-we’ve-done-tax-reform-–-haven’t-we-(Part-2).aspx
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/03/01/But-we’ve-done-tax-reform-–-haven’t-we-(Part-2).aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=37620fee-65a4-4cf5-b36c-b30b36874415Sun, 01 Mar 2015 18:30:00 +1100Economics2353http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=37620fee-65a4-4cf5-b36c-b30b3687441519http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/trackback.axd?id=37620fee-65a4-4cf5-b36c-b30b36874415http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/03/01/But-we’ve-done-tax-reform-–-haven’t-we-(Part-2).aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/syndication.axd?post=37620fee-65a4-4cf5-b36c-b30b36874415But we’ve done tax reform – haven’t we?<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000000;"><br /> Here&rsquo;s a tip for 2015. If the Abbott Government can remove the current opinion polls and stories of excess and incompetence from the front pages, it has been signalling that it intends to tackle &lsquo;tax reform&rsquo; during the life of the current government. It wouldn&rsquo;t be the first to attempt to do this: Governments back to the days of Hawke in the 1980&rsquo;s have legislated large changes in the way the government charges for the services it provides &mdash; and the continual evolution of the Australian and international community would indicate that further changes are necessary now and in the future.<br /><br /> There is an implication that the governments that rate highly on &lsquo;economic management&rsquo; also seem to be considered &lsquo;good&rsquo; governments. The Hawke/Keating Government introduced a number of changes to tax collection practices during the 1980&rsquo;s, as did the Howard Government in the 1990&rsquo;s, and were still considered &lsquo;good&rsquo; governments. No doubt Abbott would like to share the same perception.<br /><br /> This week&rsquo;s discussion piece is a very brief overview of some of the issues with payment of taxes (charges and levies); next week we will look at some of the realities of &lsquo;tax reform&rsquo; &mdash; why it isn&rsquo;t as easy as some commentators, politicians and academics suggest. <br /><br /> In an ideal world, taxes would fund measures to ensure that everyone has an equal standard of living &mdash; ensuring that each member of society pays an equal amount of money to receive an equal amount of benefit. We don&rsquo;t live in an ideal world. <br /><br /> Naturally, each member of society perceives their needs and wants to be more important than others: if for example I am retired and can&rsquo;t fund my own living expenses, I expect the government to provide an allowance to make it easier to meet my ongoing commitments and live to a standard that is similar to that I enjoyed when I was employed. In contrast, if I am a parent with a young family committed to pay a mortgage and the expenses of young children, I would look to the government to give me a supplement to my income to assist in the provision of essentials to what are effectively non-productive members of the family (&lsquo;my&rsquo; children) as well as assistance towards the costs of child care, maternity leave and so on. <br /><br /> Both groups of people have an equal expectation of government support and an equal reason to believe the government should assist them &mdash; after all the retired person has contributed to society through their labour and payment of taxes for a considerable period of their lives; while a parent is still contributing labour and taxes while bringing up children who will in turn contribute labour and taxes to support the community into the future. The unfortunate thing is that when a government claims (probably with some justification) that it cannot afford to be as generous as it was in the past, there is a considerable proportion of the population who believe that their needs or wants are more important than other groups within the community: why are others getting some benefit which is reducing the funding that I can claim? <br /><br /> There is a &lsquo;long and proud&rsquo; history of robust discussion of taxation matters in Australia. In 1854, the <a href="http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/eureka-stockade">Eureka Rebellion</a> in Ballarat was primarily a revolt against the imposition of a tax (licence fee) on miners, regardless of their success at their chosen profession. While it could be said that they lost the battle, the miners won the war with their leader, Peter Lalor, being elected to the Victorian Parliament along with eight other miners in 1855. <br /><br /> At the Print Media Enquiry in 1991, Kerry Packer is reputed to <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kerry_Packer">have said</a>:<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">I am not evading tax in any way, shape or form. Now of course I am minimizing my tax and if anybody in this country doesn't minimize their tax they want their heads read because as a government I can tell you you're not spending it that well that we should be donating extra. <br /><br /></div>
&lsquo;In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes&rsquo; observed <a href="http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/death-and-taxes.html">Benjamin Franklin in 1817</a>. There are also a number of comments regarding the morals and ethics of the Roman tax collectors in the Bible. It seems that Australians aren&rsquo;t the only ones that don&rsquo;t appreciate the need for taxes. <br /><br /> Packer altruistically assisted the funding of installation of defibrillators in most New South Wales <a href="http://www.ambulance.nsw.gov.au/Community-Info/Making-a-Donation.html">ambulances</a>, so he wasn&rsquo;t averse to donating money to a &lsquo;good cause&rsquo;. However, he has a point: why should I pay proportionally more than the next person to the government to fund community services? <br /><br /> John Hewson, is the ex-Liberal Party Federal Leader who took a GST to the 1993 election as a part of his &ldquo;Fightback&rdquo; package, and lost. Hewson is now a professor of economics at Australian National University and an occasional media commentator. He observes when tax law was introduced into the Federal Parliament in 1915, the act consisted of <a href="https://taxpolicy.crawford.anu.edu.au/files/uploads/taxstudies_crawford_anu_edu_au/2014-07/dr_john_hewson.pdf">24 pages</a>, but in the 1980s the legislation ran to some 1200 pages and today it tops out at some 5500 pages. Clearly as the government has discovered &lsquo;faults&rsquo; in the legislation, it has amended the legislation to rectify the errors. That has led to those who can afford the cost finding additional loopholes that have yet to be plugged by the government of the day. After all, as Kerry Packer pointed out (above), tax minimisation is perfectly legal &mdash; tax evasion isn&rsquo;t. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) annual report for 2013/14 runs to <a href="https://www.ato.gov.au/About-ATO/Access,-accountability-and-reporting/In-detail/Annual-report/">266 pages</a>, which seems to be rather a lot when all they should really be saying is everyone paid their fair share and the world moved on. <br /><br /> There are a number of factors for the dramatic increase in the size, and one would imagine complexity, of tax law in the past 30 years. Let&rsquo;s look at two of them: tax compliance and tax minimisation. <br /><br /> During the 1970&rsquo;s, some lawyers and accountants devised a system where companies were formed, traded, made profits and just before tax was to be paid, the assets of the company were given to another related entity and the former company shell sold to an unsuspecting person without the financial backing to pay outstanding commitments, such as tax on the original company&rsquo;s income. The ATO was an unsecured creditor (a person or legal entity who is owed money by the business without legal entitlement to any of the assets by way of a mortgage or charge) to the original company, along with unsuspecting service providers and employees, and effectively <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottom_of_the_harbour_tax_avoidance">got nothing</a> as it was a pointless exercise to bankrupt the unsuspecting person. The scheme is known as the &lsquo;bottom of the harbour&rsquo; as effectively the companies that were stripped of assets were sent there to drown. <br /><br /> In recent times, the ATO has prosecuted a number of &lsquo;famous&rsquo; and &lsquo;influential&rsquo; people as a result of <em>Operation Wickenby</em>, including <em>The Masters Apprentices</em> bass guitar player and John Farnham&rsquo;s manager <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/john-farnham-hits-tax-probe-on-glenn-wheatley/story-e6frfmci-1226077860254">Glenn Wheatley</a> and star of television comedy and movies (including <em>Crocodile Dundee</em>) <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-17904063">Paul Hogan</a>. <br /><br /> Tax minimisation is completely legal, but it reduces the tax revenue available to fund the services we as a community expect the various levels of government in Australia to provide. There are a number of &lsquo;common&rsquo; schemes that are used on a daily basis including: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em;">
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_gearing_(Australia)"><em>Negative gearing</em></a> &ndash;To &lsquo;negative gear&rsquo; you borrow money to purchase an asset that will not pay it&rsquo;s own way (such as an investment property or share portfolio). The difference between income from the asset and the costs of the asset, including interest, can be claimed as a tax deduction. Those that use this scheme often offset the losses against other income (thereby reducing their taxable income) and also hope that a future increase in the price of the asset when it is sold will equal or exceed the losses they have claimed on their tax return.</li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novated_lease"><em>Novated leasing</em></a> - A three way agreement between an employee, employer and financial company where the employer nominally purchases a car (or similar) for an employee and funds the purchase from the employee&rsquo;s pre-tax income effectively reducing the employees taxable income and tax liability.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.afr.com/p/technology/how_ireland_got_apple_bn_profit_erlmHONvoHJGixwLUpFckN"><em>Exporting profits</em></a> - Apple is the subject of the link here as it apparently transferred around $2 billion to an Apple related entity based in Ireland while declaring and paying tax on a profit of under $100 million in Australia during 2013. Apple is not the only global company using this strategy. Other household names also move the bulk of their profits around the globe to avoid paying tax as well. How it works is the Australian customer deals with an Australian seller, but the financial transaction takes place in another jurisdiction where a significant proportion of the purchase price is claimed for the &lsquo;production of the item&rsquo; and &lsquo;intellectual property&rsquo; used in the product. That amount is sent directly to a related corporate entity in a country that offers the company a better tax treatment than Australia. The only part of the purchase that is &lsquo;transferred&rsquo; to the Australian company is the price of the sale infrastructure and transport of the item to the purchaser. It is fair to say that a number of these &lsquo;arrangements&rsquo; will cease to exist in the next few years as it has been recognised as a significant issue by governments and is now the subject of negotiations at events such as the G20.</li>
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In addition, governments of all colours introduce &lsquo;targeted&rsquo; tax benefits or liabilities to manage social behaviours. There is a significant tax impost if someone purchases a packet of <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/latest/a/14756661/tax-rise-will-cost-smokers-a-packet/">cigarettes</a> &mdash; the argument being that there is a measurable drop in consumption of cigarettes (an arguable benefit to society in reducing smoking related illness) every time the tax rate rises. Australia also introduced a &lsquo;Luxury Car Tax&rsquo; in 1990 in an effort to improve the viability of local vehicle manufacturing. Australian engineers can design a competitive product as shown by Ford and Holden/General Motors retaining the capacity to design a vehicle from the ground up once the current manufacturing capacity <a href="http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mellor.nsf/story2/46831BA96B7A635BCA257DA8007FBFD2">is withdrawn</a>. A discussion on how and where Luxury Car Tax applies is <a href="https://www.strattonfinance.com.au/car-finance/learn/articles/luxury-car-tax-lct-explained.aspx">here</a>. Then GST is applied to the final cost of some products (including taxes), so we are paying tax on tax in some cases. <br /><br /> John Hewson <a href="https://taxpolicy.crawford.anu.edu.au/files/uploads/taxstudies_crawford_anu_edu_au/2014-07/dr_john_hewson.pdf">claims</a>:<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">&hellip; there are 125 taxes paid by Australians annually &mdash; 99 levied by the Commonwealth (recognising many agriculture and food levies), 25 by State and Territory governments, and one by local governments. These revenues are heavily concentrated with over 90% derived fro[m] just 10 taxes, reflecting 95% of Commonwealth revenue, over 60% of State revenue, and 100% of local government revenue. <br /><br /></div>
Hewson also observes that over 66% of Australians use the services of agents to submit their annual tax return &mdash; surely an indictment of the perceived complexity of the system. <br /><br /> So we have a complicated system of taxes, charges and levies, which has been added to and amended over the past century. Is &lsquo;tax reform&rsquo; a good idea in theory? &mdash; of course it is, but there is a political cost to doing it, ask John Hewson. <br /><br /> <strong>What do you think?</strong><br /><br /> <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/TPS-Authors.aspx#2353">About 2353</a><br /><br />
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<td><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #0000ff;"> The next part of this discussion will be posted next week and looks at the practicalities of introducing a fair, reasonable and easy to understand taxation system.</span></td>
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<p><br /><br /></p>http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/22/But-we’ve-done-tax-reform-–-haven’t-we.aspx
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/22/But-we’ve-done-tax-reform-–-haven’t-we.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=b59d08e8-1bba-491e-905a-3beded38ba29Sun, 22 Feb 2015 18:30:00 +1100Abbott GovernmentEconomics2353http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=b59d08e8-1bba-491e-905a-3beded38ba2952http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/trackback.axd?id=b59d08e8-1bba-491e-905a-3beded38ba29http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/22/But-we’ve-done-tax-reform-–-haven’t-we.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/syndication.axd?post=b59d08e8-1bba-491e-905a-3beded38ba29Abbott continues to tell porkies<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000000;"><br /> I was surprised during last December (and again in the past week after the unsuccessful spill motion) when Abbott and his ministers reverted to the line that the LNP government had inherited a huge budget deficit from Labor. <br /><br /> Early in December they were claiming that Labor had been <em>deceitful</em> by going into the 2013 election claiming that the deficit was only $18 billion whereas when the Liberals gained the treasury benches it was shown to be $46 billion (and I noticed in Abbott&rsquo;s appearance at the National Press Club at the beginning of February that he had rounded this up to $50 billion). That attack, in itself, was part of Abbott&rsquo;s resetting of the agenda after his &lsquo;ragged week&rsquo; and was obviously intended to turn attention back on Labor and away from the problems his government was facing: there is no doubt that approach will continue. <br /><br /> The first lie is the $18 billion deficit. That was the figure in the last Wayne Swan budget in May 2013 but Swan also made an &lsquo;Economic Statement&rsquo; in August (during the election period) as the terms of trade deteriorated and economic activity slowed, reducing government revenue. By the time of the <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.au/PublicationsAndMedia/Publications/2013/PEFO-2013">PEFO</a> (Pre-election Financial Outlook) the deficit was actually $30 billion, which had been revealed slightly earlier in Swan&rsquo;s &lsquo;Economic Statement&rsquo;. The $12 billion increase came from slowing GDP growth, and the subsequent decrease in revenue, and only $373 million (about 3% of the increase) arose from policy decisions by Labor. So Abbott&rsquo;s claim that there was a $28 billion increase in the deficit is a fiction created by adopting a set of figures that had already been superseded <em>before</em> he was elected (although semantically it was the figure &lsquo;going into the election&rsquo; &mdash; so perhaps Abbott is just playing with words again). <br /><br /> Abbott&rsquo;s claim, however, was also dealt with at the time and found to be false. In June last year, Chris Bowen said that Joe Hockey had doubled the deficit by changes to government spending and changes to government economic assumptions and parameters: the ABC&rsquo;s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-06/has-the-government-doubled-the-budget-deficit/5423392">Fact Check</a> found that Bowen&rsquo;s statement &mdash; &lsquo;checks out&rsquo;. Other economic commentators also pointed to the spending and revenue decisions made by the Abbott government as making a major contribution to the increased budget deficit. <br /><br /> Although it has been done before, I will go through the details of the government&rsquo;s finances. Please bear with me, as I will have to provide quite a few figures in explaining the situation, using the 2013-14 PEFO and MYEFO (Mid-year Economic and Financial Outlook), with some minor reference to the last two budgets. And it should be noted that the PEFO is the only financial document that is put out by Treasury and the Department of Finance. MYEFO and the budget are products of the government of the day after, of course, taking advice from the financial departments, but the final shape of those documents is always a result of government decisions. PEFO simply sets out the current situation based on the ruling assumptions and existing policies. <br /><br /> Firstly, we do need to understand that treasury forecasts are simply that &mdash; they are &lsquo;estimates&rsquo; and &lsquo;projections&rsquo;. As such, they are subject to many qualifications and assumptions. <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.au/~/media/Treasury/Publications%20and%20Media/Publications/2013/Pre-Election%20Economic%20and%20Fiscal%20Outlook%202013/Downloads/PDF/Appendix_C.ashx">Treasury</a> itself states that:<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">The forward estimates of revenue and expenses &hellip; incorporate assumptions and judgments based on the best available information at the time of publication together with a range of economic assumptions and other forecasts and projections. <br /><br /> Major taxes such as company and individuals&rsquo; income taxes fluctuate significantly with economic activity. Capital gains tax is particularly volatile and is affected by both the level of gains in asset markets and the timing of when those gains are realised. <br /><br /> In addition revenue forecasting relies heavily on the observed historical relationships between the economy, tax bases and tax revenues. Such relationships may shift over time as the economy changes, presenting a further risk to the estimates. <br /><br /></div>
(In relation to that last statement, the economy is currently undergoing changes as the mining boom ends and, therefore, there is an increased risk to the surety of the estimates.) <br /><br /> The MYEFO gives <a href="http://budget.gov.au/2013-14/content/myefo/html/04_attachment_a.htm">examples</a> of the potential impact of certain hypothetical changes. If commodity prices fall, impacting the terms of trade and causing GDP to fall by one per cent, then government revenue could be reduced by $5.5 billion. On the other hand, if there is a 0.5 per cent improvement in both labour productivity and workforce participation, government receipts could increase by $3.7 billion. <br /><br /> Those examples are important because Treasury also explains the &lsquo;<a href="http://budget.gov.au/2013-14/content/myefo/html/05_attachment_b.htm">confidence levels</a>&rsquo; of the economic and fiscal forecasts. For example, although MYEFO forecast GDP growth of 2.5%, the 70% confidence level places growth anywhere between 1.75% and 3.25%, and the 90% confidence level between 1.5% and 3.5%, which means the preceding hypothetical examples actually fall within the range of possible forecasts. <br /><br /> With those provisos in mind, we can consider the actual figures and what went into increasing the budget deficit. If we believe Abbott the increase was $28 billion but only $16 billion if we believe PEFO. Or we can also look at the accumulated deficit over the forward estimates (to 2016-17) which increased from $54.6 billion to $122.7 billion, a difference of $68 billion. I will work on the last figure because that provides the full impact of Abbott government decisions. <br /><br /> Firstly, you will probably recall Hockey&rsquo;s payment of $8.8 billion to the Reserve Bank, something the economic commentators said was not sought by the bank and was unnecessary. That leaves $59.2 billion to account for. <br /><br /> Abbott&rsquo;s big &lsquo;policy&rsquo; of repealing the carbon &lsquo;tax&rsquo; was a major contributor to the loss in government revenue, to the tune of $13.7 billion over the forward estimates. That leaves $45.5 billion. <br /><br /> Repeal of the mining tax saw the loss of another $3.3 billion. That leaves $42.2 billion. (Those three big &lsquo;decisions&rsquo; by the Abbott government cost the budgets over the forward estimates a total of $25.8 billion.) <br /><br /> There was another set of significant losses to revenue that many of us would not have heard about. Apparently there were 92 taxation and superannuation changes that had been announced by previous governments but not yet implemented. Abbott and Hockey decided to proceed with only 34 of those changes, foregoing another $3.1 billion in revenue. That leaves $39.1 billion. <br /><br /> The ABC Fact Check explains changes to a couple of the assumptions and parameters better than I can: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">
<ul>
<li>a change to the terms of trade methodology, reducing the economic growth forecasts, causing a $2 billion hit to the bottom line over the forward estimates</li>
<li>a change in the projected unemployment rate, leading to higher benefits payments totalling $3.7 billion extra</li>
</ul>
</div>
That leaves $33.4 billion. <br /><br /> But there was also a projected slowing of the economy: GDP growth figures were lowered. While this is something over which neither the Labor nor Abbott governments have much control, the Treasurer does have a say in selecting which figure to use for the forecasts (see the earlier paragraph on confidence levels). In MYEFO, the slowing economy was projected to reduce taxation receipts by $37 billion over the forward estimates. <br /><br /> So Abbott government decisions had actually increased the potential deficit by $71.6 billion over the forward estimates and it had to juggle the figures even to keep the increase to $68 billion. Even allowing that some of the worsening of the deficit would have happened no matter who was in government, Abbott government decisions directly added about $29 billion to the deficit (and up to $34.6 billion if we add the government influence in changing parameters). <br /><br /> Offsetting those losses, Abbott and Hockey had proposed abolishing the benefits introduced by Julia Gillard that were to be funded from the carbon and mining taxes. That would have decreased spending by $9.5 billion or reduced the deficit by that amount: but, of course, he has not been able to abolish all of those measures, so the deficit remains higher. Even if they had passed the parliament, the deficit would still have increased by $62.1 billion of which at least $20 billion would have arisen from decisions by the current government. <br /><br /> Estimates of government revenue for <em>2013‒14</em> were continually revised downward from the 2013‒14 budget through to the 2014‒15 budget: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em;">
<ul>
<li>$376 billion in the 2013‒14 budget</li>
<li>$369.5 billion in the PEFO</li>
<li>$364.9 billion in the MYEFO</li>
<li>$363.5 billion in the 2014‒15 budget</li>
</ul>
</div>
Despite that continual revision, the actual figure for the <a href="http://budget.gov.au/2013-14/content/fbo/html/01_part_1-01.htm">2013‒14 financial year</a> was lower still at $360.3 billion, $15.7 billion below the original budget estimate in May 2013 and even $3.2 billion below Hockey&rsquo;s budget estimate in May 2014. So there are clear revenue problems for the government that have nothing to do with decisions by the former Labor government. <br /><br /> (As a postscript, Hockey&rsquo;s more recent MYEFO in December 2014 also showed that revenue was continuing to decline in <em>2014-15</em>; down $6.3 billion since his own budget estimate and down almost $21 billion on the forecast in Swan&rsquo;s last budget.) <br /><br /> You would think that if a government takes decisions that decrease revenue it would also take other measures to increase revenue (not focus solely on cutting costs) but Abbott&rsquo;s government has locked itself into the neo-liberal position of reducing taxes and so has very little room for manoeuvre. During the election campaign, it could be argued that Abbott lied by omission by not detailing how he would make up the foregone revenue ($17 billion) of his promises to abolish the carbon and mining &lsquo;taxes&rsquo;. People were left to believe that the &lsquo;taxes&rsquo; could be abolished and nothing more need be done. I would suggest that Abbott knew that at the time and, given his promise not to raise taxes, already knew that he would undertake significant spending cuts to make up the shortfall &mdash; but of course he wouldn&rsquo;t discuss that in any detail. And then, to justify the cuts, his government artificially increased the deficit and blamed it on Labor. <br /><br /> If Abbott and Hockey had really wanted to increase revenue to improve the budget position they would have kept Labor&rsquo;s tax on annual superannuation earnings above $100,000 and the reduction in the fringe benefits tax concession on novated car leases: or have considered similar measures on other &lsquo;tax expenditures&rsquo;. Tax expenditures are foregone taxes when government provides certain benefits without taxing them or allows concessional tax rates: for example, military personnel receive a number of allowances and benefits that aren&rsquo;t taxable although legally they are &lsquo;income&rsquo;. (It is only the tax foregone, not the full cost of the benefit that is counted.) Changing tax expenditures allows governments to increase revenue without increasing income tax, although there would obviously be vested interests who would &lsquo;lose&rsquo; from such changes &mdash; such as the outcry from vehicle retailers and manufacturers when the change to the taxation of novated car leases was first announced. <br /><br /> In the 2013-14 budget the cost (foregone revenue) to government of tax expenditures was about $120 billion and was projected to rise to $146 billion in 2016-17 (which is the equivalent of 8% of GDP or about a third of projected government revenue in 2016-17). <br /><br /> While many concessions would be considered socially beneficial, there are others that appear to be of most benefit to those on higher incomes &mdash; superannuation is the one most commented on in that regard. In 2013-14 it was estimated that the concessional tax applying to <a href="http://budget.gov.au/2013-14/content/myefo/html/06_attachment_c.htm">superannuation</a> cost the government $35 billion in revenue and that was projected to rise to $51 billion in 2016-17, or a total of $170 billion over the forward estimates. <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.au/~/media/Treasury/Publications%20and%20Media/Publications/2014/TES%202013/Documents/PDF/TES-13-Consolidated.ashx">Eliminating the concessional tax rate</a> for the earnings of superannuation funds would raise $65 billion over the forward estimates, and eliminating the concession for employer contributions would raise $62 billion, a total of $127 billion. While it would somewhat defeat the purpose of compulsory superannuation (to reduce old age pension payments) to entirely eliminate concessions, there is certainly scope for changes that could easily raise a few billion dollars: for example, even to raise the concessional tax rate from 15% to 17.5% could potentially raise $4.25 billion over the forward estimates: or $8.5 billion if raised to 20% &mdash; that is still a &lsquo;concessional&rsquo; rate of tax but just not as generous. <br /><br /> Why isn&rsquo;t Abbott considering such measures? Instead, he is even scrapping the changes that Labor made that would have helped revenue. <br /><br /> He is blaming the deficit on Labor when it is clear that about half of the increase in the deficit comes from a &lsquo;natural&rsquo; fall in taxation receipts as the economy slows and transitions away from the mining boom, and the rest from decisions by Abbott and his government after it came to power. Other commentators, more expert than I, have already shown his claim is false and yet he returned to it in December, and again in the past week, obviously taking the view that because it was disproved six to eight months earlier most voters would not remember. That is probably partly true but it is also pure propaganda, no longer just &lsquo;spin&rsquo;: &lsquo;spin&rsquo; is about putting the best possible light on a bad situation, not about blatant lies. Abbott, as he did in opposition, appears to be operating on the principle that if he tells the same lie often enough, people will believe it. <br /><br /> <strong>What do you think?</strong><br /><br /> <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/TPS-Authors.aspx#Kenwolff">About Ken Wolff</a><br /><br />
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<td><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #0000ff;"> Ken says that although this is old news he will have to keep returning to it because that is what Abbott and Hockey keep doing.<br /><br /> Next week we will continue the financial theme and how to raise revenue with 2353&rsquo;s discussion of &lsquo;Tax reform&rsquo;.</span></td>
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<p><br /><br /></p>http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/15/Abbott-continues-to-tell-porkies.aspx
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/15/Abbott-continues-to-tell-porkies.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=50fbdf77-6d63-4f57-8b06-61cc7d30260dSun, 15 Feb 2015 18:30:00 +1100Abbott GovernmentKen Wolffhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=50fbdf77-6d63-4f57-8b06-61cc7d30260d37http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/trackback.axd?id=50fbdf77-6d63-4f57-8b06-61cc7d30260dhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/15/Abbott-continues-to-tell-porkies.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/syndication.axd?post=50fbdf77-6d63-4f57-8b06-61cc7d30260dIf you doubt the scientists, what about the actuaries?<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000000;"><br /> There&rsquo;s an old adage that if you want to know who will win an election follow the bookmakers&rsquo; odds or where the punters are putting their money rather than the polls (particularly when the polls are close). Something similar could be said of climate change. For Mr Abbott and others like him who remain sceptical of the science, they should instead follow the risk assessment of the actuaries as they advise the insurance and reinsurance industry and the investment banks.<br /><br /> The actuaries do not concern themselves directly with the science but with <a href="http://www.beanactuary.org/what/do/?fa=what-do-we-do">evaluating the risk</a> and the costs that arise from it. <a href="http://www.actuary.org/files/Actuaries-JUN180-2013_P10-12.pdf">As the actuaries put it</a>: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">Our role as actuaries is to help optimise decisions. We don&rsquo;t seek to prove or disprove the estimates made by the experts but we need to understand what they are saying. <br /><br /></div>
Australian actuaries have been at the forefront in taking environmental factors, including climate change, into account, establishing a committee in 1998 to examine environmental and energy issues as they affect their profession. In January 2012 Australian actuaries played a significant role at the &lsquo;Climate Change Summit for Asia&rsquo;s Insurance Industry&rsquo; in Singapore. American actuaries were slower to react (their first climate committee appeared in 2005) but are now developing an <a href="http://www.naic.org/documents/cipr_events_141007_symposium_presentation_actuaries_climate_index.pdf">Actuaries Climate Change Index</a> and an Actuaries Climate Risk Index, initially for North America, that cover a range of factors, including obvious ones like temperature and precipitation and lesser known factors like soil moisture. <br /><br /> Munich Re, a major reinsurance company, <a href="http://www.actuaries.org/CTTEES_ENVIRO/Documents/Singapore_Elayne_Grace.pdf">issued details in 2011</a> [page 11 of link] showing that the number of weather-related catastrophes between 1950 and 2010 was on an upward trend (and weather-related events accounted for about 85 per cent of insurance claims). There was a sequence of bad years between 1986 and 1999, with a peak of 14 catastrophic weather events in 1993. The years 2004, 2005 and 2007 also had an above average number of major weather events. Although it seemed slightly quieter from 2008 to 2010, 2011 became the <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9S22I700.htm">costliest year on record</a> (but not just from weather events) for the global insurance industry following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Christchurch earthquake and hurricane Irene in the US &mdash; total insurance losses for the year of $105 billion out of total economic losses from natural disasters of $380 billion. (To give those figures a context, the Australian government&rsquo;s total revenue in 2010‒11 was $283 billion.) <br /><br /> A similar upward trend is apparent in plotting natural disasters in Australia. <br /><br /> The cost to the insurers and reinsurers of such events varies, depending where they occur. <a href="http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2014.17.pdf">Some have argued</a> that the increase in insurance pay-outs is attributable mainly to social and demographic changes, such as the growth of coastal cities and rising property values. That can be seen in the Sydney hail storm of 1999 or more recently the hail storm in Brisbane at the end of November: the Sydney event remains one of the most expensive for the insurance industry in Australian history at $1.7 billion, while the current cost of the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-11/queensland-storms-estimated-insurance-loss-hits-804-million/5960032">Brisbane event</a> is slightly over $800 million. (The most expensive event to date was the 2010 Queensland floods at $2.3 billion.) For the actuaries this is not an issue, in the sense that it is a given that must be taken into account, but it does concern them that, in the various climate change scenarios, catastrophic events may occur more often in major urban areas and that cyclones may move further south, bringing them within range of Queensland&rsquo;s heavily populated and built-up south-east corner. <br /><br /> <a href="http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/IAG-Climate_Change_Paper.pdf">IAG in Australia</a> is now utilising climate science figures that suggest that a 1&deg;C increase in mean summer temperature will increase the risk of bushfires by 17 to 28 per cent; an increase of 2.2&deg;C will cause a 5 to 10 per cent increase in cyclone wind speeds; that a 25 per cent increase in the volume of rain over short periods will mean that what is currently viewed as a one-in-100 year flood could become a one-in-36 year flood or, at worst, a one-in-17 year event. <br /><br /> The actuaries are also concerned that small changes created by climate change will not cause a proportional increase in damage (and insurance costs) but an exponential increase: for example, a 25 percent increase in a storm&rsquo;s peak wind gusts from 40‒50 knots to 50‒60 knots does not produce a 25 per cent increase in damage but a 650 per cent increase. (For those who are metrically minded that is an increase from 74‒93km/h to 93‒111km/h.) It means our current housing stock is not well-suited to such an increase in the intensity of storms and that poses major challenges for insurance companies. <br /><br /> Terms like 1-in-100 year and 1-in-200 year will become meaningless as events of that magnitude occur on a more regular basis. <a href="http://www.actuaries.org/CTTEES_ENVIRO/Documents/Singapore_Elayne_Grace.pdf">In the UK</a> [page 21 of link], it has been estimated that the insurance industry would require <em>additional</em> capital of &pound;1 billion to cover 1-in-200 year flood events if there is a temperature rise of 2&deg;C but &pound;5.5 billion if there is a 6&deg;C rise in temperature (the upper end of IPCC forecasts). To cover costs, it was also estimated that insurance pricing in the UK would need to increase by 16% for a 2&deg;C rise and 47% for a 6&deg;C rise. Those figures illustrate how the actuaries are examining the risk posed by both the high and low range climate change forecasts. <br /><br /> Insurance companies and their actuaries are not concerned merely by the local risks from climate change. The linkages between insurance companies created by reinsurance mechanisms means that they can each be affected by catastrophes anywhere on the globe. For example, the price to insurance companies of reinsurance almost doubled after cyclone Andrew in the US in 1992 (because that one event accounted for about 40 per cent of the then globally available capital for reinsurance) and it was three years before the price began to decline again. <br /><br /> The associated danger is that the cost of insurance becomes too expensive. More and more individuals may not take out insurance to cover their assets. In 2002, $1,500 billion of Australia&rsquo;s wealth was locked up in homes, commercial buildings, ports and other physical assets. <a href="http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/IAG-Climate_Change_Paper.pdf">IAG&rsquo;s Chief Risk Officer has stated</a>:<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">The insurance industry currently underwrites the risk to the bulk of these assets from weather events but climate change threatens its ability to do so as effectively in the future. Therefore the affect to Australia from climate change is quickly becoming a social, economic and political issue. <br /><br /></div>
The worst case scenario is that insurance companies themselves fail from the increasing insurance &lsquo;losses&rsquo; and the rising cost of reinsurance, leaving people and businesses with no market mechanism to protect assets. In economic terms, &lsquo;insurance&rsquo; is a means of spreading risk but if premiums become too expensive or insurance companies fail, the government will become the &lsquo;insurer&rsquo; of last resort, as the main body able to spread and absorb the risk &mdash; but at what cost to taxpayers? <br /><br /> There is already some talk of greater government involvement. Following the 2010 Queensland floods the then Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten announced the Australian National Disaster Insurance Review. The <a href="http://www.ndir.gov.au/content/Content.aspx?doc=report.htm">Review&rsquo;s final report</a> included recommendations for: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">
<ul>
<ul>
<li>the creation of a government agency* to manage national coordination of flood risk management and to operate a system of premium discounts and a flood risk reinsurance facility</li>
<li>all home insurance policies to include flood cover</li>
<li>a system of premium discounts in order that most purchasers of policies in areas subject to flood risk are eligible for discounts against the full cost of flood insurance</li>
<li>a government guarantee for claim payments</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</div>
(* A similar body had been created by the Howard government after the &lsquo;twin towers&rsquo; terrorist attack to provide a government guarantee as regards terrorism insurance.) <br /><br /> <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.au/PublicationsAndMedia/Publications/2011/Government-Response-NDIR">The government response</a> to most of the recommendations was, however, that it would &lsquo;consider&rsquo; them as part of a broader consideration of disaster insurance changes, following a consultation process in 2012. Apart from action on the definition of what constitutes a &lsquo;flood&rsquo;, I am not aware of other government steps on this issue. One aspect that appears to have held up government action is that many insurance companies continue to operate on neo-liberal market principles and <a href="https://www.lloyds.com/~/media/files/the%20market/communications/market%20bulletins/2011/12/y4540.pdf">oppose government involvement</a>: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">In July 2011 Lloyd&rsquo;s made it clear to the Review that government intervention in private insurance markets should be kept to a minimum and warned that the creation of insurance programmes or pools limits the effectiveness of the insurance industry, can be hugely costly for governments and hampers the application of sound actuarial and risk-based principles. <br /><br /></div>
It is almost inevitable that in future years (despite Lloyd&rsquo;s current approach), there will be more discussion of the government&rsquo;s role in insurance. If the actuaries&rsquo; figures are borne out, the cost of insurance could become prohibitive either for the individual or for the insurance companies, or both. Alternately, governments have to be active now in taking measures to adapt to and mitigate climate change that will help contain future costs. <br /><br /> Actuaries are already speaking of the need for adaptation and mitigation. A simple example is ensuring that buildings in cyclone-prone areas are built to cyclone standards. Here in Australia, the actuaries are using the evidence that recent cyclone damage has been greatest to dwellings that were not built to such standards or, in some cases, where such standards were not enforced during construction. Taking action now may help avoid the high range climate change scenarios and the associated higher costs: not only insurance costs, but the construction costs of more stringent cyclone standards to cope with higher cyclonic wind speeds. The draconian alternative is abandoning some of the towns and cities that are subject to cyclones. <br /><br /> IAG has suggested that insurance companies can drive public awareness programs that identify vulnerable areas, can lobby governments to change or enforce building codes, and, in relation to emissions, can offer lower vehicle insurance premiums for those driving fewer kilometres. Insurance companies are also funding research to more clearly identify the risks they face. IAG is funding research into the development of hail storms over Sydney: warmer waters appear one contributing factor, so the risk is, if oceans warm as predicted, that those events will become more frequent. <br /><br /> Despite the need for adaptation and mitigation, last December we saw Queensland minister Jeff Seeney order the Moreton Bay Regional Council to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-09/seeney-removes-climate-change-references-from-council-plan/5954914">remove from its regional plan</a> reference to a climate change-derived sea level rise of 0.8 metres by 2100. The Local Government Association of Queensland feared that Seeney may enforce that for all coastal councils in Queensland and was seeking legal advice. The concern is that councils may be legally liable, like tobacco and asbestos companies, if it is shown that they <em>knew</em> of the risk but failed to act. <br /><br /> Seeney claimed he intervened &lsquo;to ensure the residents&rsquo; rights to build and develop their properties were maintained and not restricted by their local council&rsquo;. That relates to issues I discussed last year on <em>TPS</em> regarding the Right&rsquo;s view of individual freedom and individual self-interest. And it manages to ignore completely the growing concern of the insurance industry and its actuaries. <br /><br /> The actuaries are also discussing the risk related to the market value of companies holding carbon (fossil fuel) assets. The argument goes like this: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em;">
<ul>
<ul>
<li>to limit global temperature rise to 2&deg;C we have a &lsquo;carbon budget&rsquo; of 886 gigatonnes of CO2 between 2000 and 2050</li>
<li>in the first ten years of the century we have used 321 gigatonnes of that budget, leaving 565 gigatonnes</li>
<li>but known global reserves of carbon fuels would produce 2,795 gigatonnes of CO2</li>
<li>top listed companies represent around 25 per cent of those reserves</li>
<li>so what happens to the companies&rsquo; value if only 20 per cent of carbon fuel reserves can be used?</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</div>
In economic terminology, these would become &lsquo;stranded assets&rsquo; &mdash; assets that can no longer be used. That has implications for companies and the share markets. Insurance companies are particularly concerned because they rely on investments to help build their funds, so they need to reduce such risk in their investment portfolios. Actuaries who provide advice in those areas are starting to factor such considerations into their advice. <br /><br /> Insurance companies are recognising that a <em>risk</em> from climate change already exists and, whether convinced by the science or not, are asking their actuaries to assess that risk. They are acting on the precautionary principle &mdash; expressed this way by a <a href="http://www.climatewise.org.uk/storage/The%20disastrous%20flooding%20in%20the%20UK%20could%20just%20as%20well%20have%20happened%20here.pdf">Swedish insurance company</a>:<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">Climate change has been a hot topic for a long time now. Global warming is probably contributing to many of the changes in our weather. <em>Whatever the reason</em>, the conclusion is that we have to respond to the situation more effectively. [emphasis added] <br /><br /></div>
It&rsquo;s a shame that we can&rsquo;t say the same of our government, although it is likely that the government will be the one left to pick up the tab if the insurance companies can no longer meet the cost of weather events arising from climate change. Someone should ask Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey what sort of debt and deficit disaster that will create for future generations. <br /><br /> <strong>What do you think?</strong> <br /><br /> <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/TPS-Authors.aspx#Kenwolff">About Ken Wolff</a><br /><br />
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<td><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #0000ff;"> This week Ken takes a different look at climate change and suggests that Tony Abbott, and other climate science sceptics like him, should instead consider the risk assessment of the actuaries. The government may be taking no notice of climate change but the insurance industry certainly is. <br /><br /> Next week we start a series of articles on financial matters, starting with another piece by Ken, 'Abbott continues to tell porkies', which examines the detail of the so-called budget deficit disaster and asks why Abbott and Hockey did not also consider other tax changes, particularly regarding 'tax expenditures'. It will be followed by 2353 examining the issue of tax reform and why it is so difficult. </span></td>
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<p><br /><br /></p>http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/08/If-you-doubt-the-scientists-what-about-the-actuaries.aspx
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/08/If-you-doubt-the-scientists-what-about-the-actuaries.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=240f4ddd-c8aa-499e-a98b-b12357265e59Sun, 08 Feb 2015 18:30:00 +1100Abbott GovernmentClimate ChangeEconomicsPoliticsKen Wolffhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=240f4ddd-c8aa-499e-a98b-b12357265e5945http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/trackback.axd?id=240f4ddd-c8aa-499e-a98b-b12357265e59http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/08/If-you-doubt-the-scientists-what-about-the-actuaries.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/syndication.axd?post=240f4ddd-c8aa-499e-a98b-b12357265e59We’re all in this together<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000000;">
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">As human beings we each have a responsibility to care for humanity. Expressing concern for others brings inner strength and deep satisfaction. As social animals, human beings need friendship, but friendship doesn&rsquo;t come from wealth and power, but from showing compassion and concern for others. [<a href="https://www.facebook.com/DalaiLama">Dalai Lama</a>] <br /><br /></div>
It is common to make a resolution on New Year&rsquo;s Eve that, if kept, will make us better people in the forthcoming year. It is also a period of reflection, of things we did well, things we could have done better and things that we just should consider &mdash; so with your indulgence, and as New Year&rsquo;s Eve was only a few weeks ago, I would propose that we should all reflect on this <a href="http://www.australianinspiration.com.au/Quotes/Authors/C/CostelloReverendTim.aspx">quote from the Reverend Tim Costello</a> (Baptist Minister, CEO of World Vision and brother of former Australian Treasurer, Peter), and that we should all aspire to it in 2015. <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">Ultimately we have got to co-operate for our common destiny. <br /><br /></div>
If you&rsquo;re reading this site you&rsquo;ll probably remember that back at the beginning of November, the Memorial Service for past Prime Minister Edward Gough Whitlam was celebrated at the Sydney Town Hall. As you would expect, all the living Prime Ministers attended the service &mdash; and the public outside did not greet Prime Ministers Howard, Rudd and Abbott with any enthusiasm. Regardless of our opinions of the three gentlemen in question, it is my contention here that the treatment they received outside the Hall was inappropriate for three past and current leaders of our community. True, once inside, Abbott gave the impression he was there only because he &lsquo;had to be there&rsquo;, when speaker after speaker was pointing out the legacy left by Whitlam, so he was equally at fault. <br /><br /> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/oliver-burkeman-column/2014/nov/04/get-along-enemies-motive-attribution">Oliver Burkeman</a>, writing in the US version of <em>The Guardian</em> opened a recent opinion piece with the headline &lsquo;We can all get along &mdash; and for less than the cost of a Taylor Swift Album&rsquo;. While Taylor Swift may not be your preferred musical choice (she certainly isn&rsquo;t mine), the article asks why people &lsquo;hate&rsquo; those with a different viewpoint. Burkeman looks at a recent study by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America that set out to look at the reasons for intractable disputes: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">Political conflict between American Democrats and Republicans and ethnoreligious conflict between Israelis and Palestinians seem intractable, despite the availability of reasonable compromise solutions in both cases. This research demonstrates a fundamental cognitive bias driving such conflict intractability: Adversaries attribute their ingroup&rsquo;s actions to ingroup love more than outgroup hate and attribute their outgroup&rsquo;s actions to outgroup hate more than ingroup love. This biased attributional pattern increases beliefs and intentions associated with conflict intractability, including unwillingness to negotiate and unwillingness to vote for compromise solutions. In addition, offering financial incentives for accuracy in evaluating one&rsquo;s outgroup mitigates this biased attributional pattern and its consequences. Understanding this bias and how to alleviate it can contribute to conflict resolution on a global scale. <br /><br /></div>
In other words, can people be convinced to &lsquo;see the values of their enemies&rsquo;? Well it turns out that the answer is yes; people can gain an understanding that the motives of their &lsquo;enemies&rsquo; are usually the same as their own motives but they come from a different viewpoint. Where the Taylor Swift comparison comes in is that when interviewing Americans about their hatred of the Republicans/Democrats (as applicable), it only took $12 &mdash; less than the cost of the aforesaid Taylor Swift album &mdash; for the interviewee to be able to describe the motivation behind those from the other side. Yes, the potential to gain $12 may demonstrate a number of human failings rather than an opening of awareness but maybe some of the interviewees actually did begin to question their rationale that the other side is completely wrong. <br /><br /> Burkeman links in his analysis to the writings of Arnold Kling who wrote <em>The Library of Economics and Liberty</em> and <a href="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/06/opening_minds_c.html">suggests</a>:<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">The following thought occurred to me recently. Suppose we look at writing on issues where people tend to hold strong opinions that fit with their ideology. <br /> Such writing can<br /> (a) attempt to open the minds of people on the opposite side as the author<br /> (b) attempt to open minds of people on the same side as the author<br /> (c) attempt to close minds of people on the same side as the author<br /> So, think about it. Wouldn't you classify most op-eds and blog posts as (c)? Isn't that sort of pathetic? Here are some more thoughts: <br /> 1. The default is (c). If you are not consciously trying to do (a) or (b), then you will almost surely do (c).<br /><br /></div>
Burkeman then acknowledges: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">Indeed, an awful lot of opinionating, in the media and elsewhere, just takes the hate-based motivations of the other side as given. The real purpose of such writing &mdash; and I&rsquo;ve done plenty of it myself &mdash; is rarely to change opponents&rsquo; minds. That kind of project would surely benefit from accepting the possibility that those opponents think of themselves as decent, loving people. Instead, it&rsquo;s to rally the existing supporters of one&rsquo;s cause, reinforcing their perception of the other side as driven by hate. <br /><br /></div>
This line of reasoning could support the motives and operations of various media &lsquo;personalities&rsquo; and politicians both here and overseas. <br /><br /> Abbott became prime minister through unfailing negativity. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/07/to-attack-rather-than-build-is-now-the-norm-but-he-coalitions-negative-campaigning-is-backfiring">In opposition:</a><br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">They focused like a laser beam on any action by the Labor government that could be effectively attacked. It was primarily a negative opposition, with the biggest promises being the undoing of Labor&rsquo;s legislative and infrastructure agenda. Abbott opposed the NBN, the mining tax, the carbon price, poker machine reform and much more. <br /><br /></div>
However, in government, this process has now come back to bite them badly. <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">It&rsquo;s almost universally agreed by economists and policy experts that a carbon price, through a tax or trading scheme, is the most effective and efficient method for reducing emissions. Julia Gillard opened herself to attack over the carbon price because of her promise during the election campaign that there would be no carbon tax under her government. The Coalition leapt on this broken promise and attacked the Gillard government relentlessly. <br /><br /></div>
Gillard didn&rsquo;t sell the &lsquo;carbon tax&rsquo; well. One could argue that NBN, Disabilitycare and a number of other policies were sold equally as badly by the ALP under Rudd and Gillard. The continual infighting made known to the public through leaks didn&rsquo;t help promote a sense of unity and purpose. Abbott&rsquo;s relentless attacks on those policies now puts him in a position where he can&rsquo;t offer the &lsquo;effective and efficient&rsquo; method to reduce carbon emissions, neither can he offer the ALP&rsquo;s technically superior NBN, the more cost effective &lsquo;paid parental leave&rsquo; or any form of increased assistance for those with a long term disability. Hate politics has gotten in the way of good policy &mdash; and you and I (as well as our descendants) will suffer. Abbott now calls for <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/labor-greens-and-clive-palmer-attack-tony-abbott-over-his-call-for-mature-gst-debate/story-fncynjr2-1227104455339">mature debate</a> surrounding increasing the GST &mdash; something that he claimed was &lsquo;off the table&rsquo; while in opposition. When Clive Palmer is literally laughing at Abbott and even NewsCorp is reporting the request with some sarcasm, Abbott has a problem. <a href="http://theaimn.com/first-speaker-mature-debate/">Kaye Lee discusses Abbott&rsquo;s conundrum</a> on <em>The Australian Independent Media Network</em> by pointing out some of the other revenue-leaking measures Abbott has promised not to touch, despite being unfair to large sectors of the community. <br /><br /> In November, Senator David Leyonhjelm who is an independent, wrote <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/06/dear-bill-shorten-youre-the-opposition-leader-not-me-its-time-to-drop-your-soft-bipartisanship">an opinion piece</a> for <em>The Guardian</em> headed: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">&lsquo;Dear Bill Shorten: you're the opposition leader, not me. It's time to drop your soft bipartisanship.&rsquo; <br /><br /></div>
Rather than oppose for the sake of opposing, or donning a hi-vis vest and walking into some unsuspecting factory with a media circus in the manner of Abbott while he was in opposition, is Shorten playing a longer game here? If he is less &lsquo;absolute&rsquo; now, he will be more able to determine the best practical policy outcomes in the future, assuming the opinion polls are correct. A search of <em>The Guardian</em> or Fairfax Media&rsquo;s websites will show a list of items where Bill Shorten is actively and publically differentiating his party from Abbott. Some of his speeches have been (in the words of <em>Yes Minister</em>) &lsquo;courageous&rsquo; &mdash; such as his speech at the Christian Lobby&rsquo;s convention that he is in favour of blended families and <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bill-shorten-to-confront-christian-lobby-over-samesex-marriage-20141024-11bbdz.html"> same sex marriage</a>.<br /><br /> Professor Selena Bartlett from QUT has developed a &lsquo;brain vitality index&rsquo;, which she hopes will become as well known as the BMI used as an indicator of physical health. <a href="http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-07-neuroscientist-brain-vitality-index.html">Bartlett claims</a><br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">&ldquo;Often we are not aware of what we are saying to ourselves or the impact this has on our brain health,&rdquo; she said. <br /><br /> &ldquo;Your brain is a massive computer. If you get up in the morning thinking &lsquo;I'm sad&rsquo;, or &lsquo;I'm worthless&rsquo;, it's like entering a search for 'worthless'.<br /><br /> &ldquo;Your brain then sets about finding the evidence to support these thoughts and so the whole negative feedback loop becomes part of your brain's hardware. <br /><br /> &ldquo;Our brains hold onto negative thoughts more than positive thoughts and if we maintain and reiterate endless negative self-narratives it causes stress.&rdquo; <br /><br /></div>
Bartlett&rsquo;s research puts a scientific and peer reviewed foundation to the writings of Kling and Burkeman discussed above. She also has a free &lsquo;app&rsquo; on the Apple and GooglePlay download &lsquo;stores&rsquo; should you wish to &lsquo;measure&rsquo; your brain vitality. <br /><br /> At the end of the day, Tim Costello is right: we do have to co-operate to survive. No one person or group of people has all the correct answers. So why is it that there are a number of people prepared to tear down not only the opinions of those who haven&rsquo;t come to the same conclusion, but tear down the person as well? Burkeman, Kling and Bartlett all demonstrate from different perspectives that negativity is a dangerous weapon. Bartlett also demonstrates that negative opinions are harder to &lsquo;modify&rsquo; than positive opinions. <br /><br /> It is frequently said that people go &lsquo;into&rsquo; politics because they have a genuine desire to improve the lives and outcomes for their community. Those who meet a politician from &lsquo;the other side&rsquo; also frequently express that they seem to be nice people who are genuinely interested. Why then did it become acceptable for political parties and their acolytes to engender hatred of &lsquo;the other side&rsquo; for political gain? <br /><br /> At the end of the day, no one gets off the earth alive and we need to be able to understand that others may have differing opinions developed through a similar reasoning pattern as our own. Surely as a society we have the ability to disagree with a person&rsquo;s ideas or motives &mdash; but not hate the person. <br /><br /> <strong>What do you think? </strong><br /><br /> <a href=" http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/TPS-Authors.aspx#2353 ">About 2353</a><br /><br />
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<td><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #0000ff;"> As the first &lsquo;official&rsquo; post for the year (not counting our &lsquo;warm-up&rsquo; or the announcement of changes for TPS in 2015 during the week), 2353 has asked whether we can in this new year be more understanding of opposing views, whether people can disagree with an idea without attacking the person holding it. It is an aim that all should strive for in 2015, including our politicians. Then we might have some genuine public discourse on ideas for Australia&rsquo;s future rather than political name calling. We can only live in hope! Come back next week for: 'If you doubt the scientists, what about the actuaries?' by Ken Wolff</span></td>
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<p><br /><br /></p>http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/01/We’re-all-in-this-together.aspx
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/01/We’re-all-in-this-together.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=b08c1654-f474-4e8f-bba6-ede55b665502Sun, 01 Feb 2015 18:30:00 +1100political opinionsPolitics2353http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=b08c1654-f474-4e8f-bba6-ede55b66550260http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/trackback.axd?id=b08c1654-f474-4e8f-bba6-ede55b665502http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/02/01/We’re-all-in-this-together.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/syndication.axd?post=b08c1654-f474-4e8f-bba6-ede55b665502Enjoy a new era at The Political Sword<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000000;"><br /> On Saturday, 13 September 2008 Ad astra wrote: &lsquo;<em>This is the first posting of The Political Sword blog. Its focus is Australian politics. It is intended to give expression to those who have opinions about contemporary political events. In particular it will provide a forum for exposing deception among politicians, bureaucrats and commentators. <br /><br /> &lsquo;The people deserve to know the truth about political decisions, how and why they were made, and about those who made them. They are entitled to know if political commentators are truthfully representing the situations they are reporting, and that they make clear what is fact, and what is opinion. They owe it to their readers to validate the facts they report and reveal their source. <br /><br /> &lsquo;By challenging politicians and commentators to stick to the truth and to justify their words and actions, it is possible that the quality of political discourse in this country might improve. The Internet provides ordinary citizens with the opportunity to influence political behaviour between elections, rather than only at election time.<br /><br /> &lsquo;Politicians, journalists and academics read political blogs - they are bound to be influenced by them, at least to some extent. <br /><br /> &lsquo;Al Gore said that political blogs have become a significant new force in political debate and decision making in the US. The same opportunity exists in this country to put politicians and commentators to the verbal political sword</em>.&rsquo;<br /><br /> Over six years later, the words apply even more than when they were written. Blogs and social media now <em>do</em> impinge on politicians; sometimes the politicians <em>do</em> hear what the ordinary person says and sometimes they <em>do</em> respond. But their honesty and their transparency has not improved; indeed it seems to have deteriorated, most noticeably since the 2013 election. <br /><br /> When in September 2013, at the same time as Lyn, who provided <em>TPS</em> users with comprehensive links to political material day after day for many years, Ad astra decided to step back from <em>TPS</em>, Janet (jan@j4gypsy), not wanting to see it disappear, moved in and organised a team that has maintained the site ever since. In Ad astra&rsquo;s words: &ldquo;<em>Her organisational skill, and the dedication of TPS team members have been outstanding. They have authored, sought other authors, reviewed, edited, and coded countless pieces that have appeared week after week on TPS</em>.&rdquo;<br /><br /> Over time the nature of our author contributions has evolved. In recent months, the emphasis of most pieces has been on the philosophical aspects of politics, with a focus on economics. The pieces have been learned treatises on the chosen subject, well researched and referenced with many links, fascinating and valuable reading that has evoked reflection and deep thought about the matters that influence politics profoundly. Because these matters are seldom addressed by politicians in their discourse with the public, and are usually neglected by mainstream media journalists, the electorate has been left to flounder in a sea of inconsequential superficiality, devoid of thoughtful consideration of the central issues that influence, and indeed mould our democracy. <em><strong>So important have these pieces been, that it is planned that such contributions shall continue to be the solid base upon which TPS will continue in 2015</strong></em>. You can look forward to more of such pieces from our talented authors. <br /><br /> Casablanca took over from Lyn, and since then has supplied a continual stream of links to important material from the media. Her dedication and perspicacity in selecting relevant items is deeply appreciated. You can look forward to her contributions in 2015. <br /><br /> As we enter a new year and contemplate the 2016 election in about eighteen months, as the substandard performance of the Abbott government continues, and as its leader&rsquo;s performance declines by the day and his public approval sinks to greater depths, the need has become more and more pressing for incisive commentary on the government, its leader and its ministers, as well as on what the other parties are doing. <br /><br /> <em>TPS Extra</em><br /><br /> To this end, <em>TPS</em> has added another component to its repertoire: <em>TPS Extra</em>. Older readers will remember how curbside paperboys in another era shouted: &lsquo;Extra, Extra, read all about it&rsquo; as they spruiked editions of their newspaper that contained startling news. <em>TPS Extra</em> is <em>TPS</em>&rsquo;s attempt to bring you the startling &mdash; in political commentary. We will not be generating news; there are countless news generators, and we don&rsquo;t have the resources anyway. What we will be doing is dissecting the contemporary news from many sources, analyzing it, looking for meaning in the events, and interpreting what they might imply. We will provide links to the news sources and will often quote from them. The pieces will therefore be opinion pieces. They will reflect the opinion of the author, and they will invite your opinion. <br /><br /> It is our intention to post such opinion pieces on <em>TPS Extra</em>. There may be several in one week, or none at all, depending on what is happening politically. You will be able to read these by switching from the main site, <em>The Political Sword</em>, to <em>TPS Extra</em>. 'Buttons' have been provided on each site to enable you to switch from one to the other and back again as often as you wish. <br /><br /> Our Webmaster, who goes by the nickname Web Monkey, has skillfully designed the new site and the transit buttons. We are deeply indebted to him for his stylish design. <br /><br /> <em>TPS Extra</em> is now live at <a href="http://www.tpsextra.com.au">http://www.tpsextra.com.au</a>. There are several posts there: four prepared last week to trial the new site, and one added this week that comments on Australia Day . You may wish to read them, comment upon them, and rate them. Commenting and rating are done just as on the main <em>TPS</em> site. <br /><br /> We suggest you make the original <em>TPS</em> site your default, and switch to <em>TPS Extra</em> as the desire takes you. <br /><br /> We trust you will enjoy the variety now offered by <em>The Political Sword</em> in its two forms. <br /><br /> While the main <em>TPS</em> site will continue to focus on more in-depth analysis of political and social issues, we are also making some minor changes in our approach for 2015.<br /><br /> <em>A call to authors</em><br /><br /> <em>The Political Sword</em> will be accepting shorter pieces from authors for posting. Last year, our posts were usually around 2000 words (give or take 200‒300 words) but this year we will accept shorter pieces, anything from 400 to 1000 words. So if you have been reading our posts thinking you couldn&rsquo;t write longer pieces like that, now you don&rsquo;t have to. When we receive shorter pieces, we will attempt to put pieces addressing the same topic together and post them together: so instead of a single article constituting a post, we may have two, three or four articles. <br /><br /> To help you, we now also have a list of themes. This doesn&rsquo;t mean that they are the only things we will post about but we do hope to address a number of them during the year and your pieces, both short and long, will help. <br /><br /> Our current themes are: <br /><br />
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<ul>
<li>education</li>
<li>health</li>
<li>environment/climate change</li>
<li>immigration/asylum seekers</li>
<li>economy</li>
<li>social equity</li>
<li>tax</li>
<li>finance</li>
<li>work and the labour force in the 21st century</li>
<li>welfare</li>
<li>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs</li>
<li>science, research and innovation</li>
</ul>
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In addressing the themes, we will not only be looking for critiques of the current approach taken by the government but alternative approaches that may actually help improve the situation or approaches that you think Labor could take into the next election. Of course, some of the themes can overlap. <br /><br /> And, given our authors&rsquo; statement of beliefs (see below), there is also scope to ask them to expand on some of those beliefs and explain how they see our society achieving the ideals they have listed. <br /><br /> <em>About our authors</em><br /><br /> We are also introducing a new feature: &lsquo;<a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/page/TPS-Authors.aspx">About our authors</a>&rsquo;, for both <em>TPS</em> and <em>TPS Extra</em>. We all have our beliefs, our vision of the sort of country in which we want to live, and of course our biases. So that you can see where our authors are coming from as they write, a short bio and a longer statement of beliefs will be provided for you to read about each of them, all at the click of your mouse. To read about our authors, click <strong>&lsquo;About our authors&rsquo;</strong> which you will see in the left panel immediately below &lsquo;AA's Top Political Websites&rsquo;. <br /><br />During the year, each author will be asked to provide a short &lsquo;bio&rsquo; and a statement of beliefs. A short &lsquo;bio&rsquo; from each author will be necessary, but the statement of beliefs is optional, although we do think it adds to our readers&rsquo; understanding of the author&rsquo;s position and approach. <br /><br /> As always, your feedback will be welcome as regards both <em>TPS Extra</em> and the approach on <em>TPS</em>.<br /><br /> The <em>TPS</em> Team<br /><br />
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<td><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #0000ff;">Be sure to come back on Sunday evening for our first main post of the year: &lsquo;We&rsquo;re all in this together&rsquo; by 2353.</span></td>
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<br /><br /></div>http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/01/29/Enjoy-a-new-era-at-The-Political-Sword.aspx
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/01/29/Enjoy-a-new-era-at-The-Political-Sword.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=72c13188-e8af-4dc7-a8e6-f80c373771bcThu, 29 Jan 2015 18:30:00 +1100MediaTPS Teamhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=72c13188-e8af-4dc7-a8e6-f80c373771bc29http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/trackback.axd?id=72c13188-e8af-4dc7-a8e6-f80c373771bchttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/01/29/Enjoy-a-new-era-at-The-Political-Sword.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/syndication.axd?post=72c13188-e8af-4dc7-a8e6-f80c373771bcProud to be a bigot: a view from the barbie<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000000;"><br /> Everyone knows about George Brandis&rsquo;s now <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2F6a5b8de8-212b-46a9-b00f-61b865fe92a2%2F0026%22">famous comment</a>: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">People do have a right to be bigots, you know. In a free country, people do have rights to say things that other people find offensive or insulting or bigoted. <br /><br /></div>
I have decided to take him at his word and tell Tony Abbott to eff off back to where he came from. He arrived here as a &pound;10 pom and I will willingly refund his &pound;10 (or $20 in real Australian money) if he takes the next boat home &mdash; perhaps we can spare him an orange life boat for the journey. Why wasn&rsquo;t his boat stopped at sea and turned back? Given what he is doing to Oz, he must certainly rank as an &lsquo;undesirable&rsquo; immigrant. <br /><br /> Yes, before the conservative critics start pointing out that Julia Gillard was born in Wales, in my bigoted view someone born in Wales (or Scotland or Ireland) ranks considerably higher than a conservative wanna-be toff born in England. If you doubt my &lsquo;wanna-be toff&rsquo; comment, why did he re-introduce Knights and Dames into the Order of Australia? We got rid of those stupid, meaningless titles years ago but obviously a pom like Abbott still thinks they are important to Oz &mdash; where&rsquo;s he been for the past 30 years? Perhaps he is hoping that one day one of his successors will offer him a title for all the great work he has done. But I&rsquo;m not sure where he thinks this &lsquo;great work&rsquo; will be done: it&rsquo;s certainly not here in Oz going by his current performance. <br /><br /> Why do we need a pom running our country? He&rsquo;ll only ruin it. Sorry, he already is, as James Wight pointed out so well in his piece <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/08/29/default.aspx">here</a> on <em>TPS</em>. <br /><br /> Although he may have arrived here as a kid (and I mean that in both senses of the word because in my humble view he is a goat), he doesn&rsquo;t seem to really understand this country. I don&rsquo;t know what he was doing when growing up out here but it certainly wasn&rsquo;t in any way, shape or form giving him a genuine understanding of the Australian way of life. I haven&rsquo;t seen him at the pub. <br /><br /> He pretends he is one of us but he tries too hard. Who else but Abbott still appears on the beach in budgie smugglers? Anyone who does is up themselves, thinks they are Adonis, or god&rsquo;s gift to women &mdash; in my blatantly bigoted opinion, that fits Abbott to a tee. He walks with an exaggerated swagger &mdash; &lsquo;look at me, look at me&rsquo;, it says, &lsquo;ain&rsquo;t I the best thing since sliced bread&rsquo;. He is a &lsquo;big head&rsquo; and that is un-Australian. He seems to think he deserves to be a Knight, or perhaps a Lord, who can tell the rest of us what is good for us &mdash; as long as it is also good for him and his up-town mates. Sorry (again), he&rsquo;s already doing that as well. <br /><br /> He bicycles. He jogs. He is a member of the volunteer bush fire brigade, at least when it presents a photo opportunity. He is a member of a surf live-saving club but you wouldn&rsquo;t think so the way he treats the rest of us. There are plenty of others doing those volunteer jobs who never make it onto the telly and they deserve all the praise and credit they get but when someone turns up for the photo that will appear in tomorrow&rsquo;s papers, you have to ask yourself: is this bloke for real? <br /><br /> And he sleeps with the police! What sort of bloke sleeps with the police and doesn&rsquo;t go home to his missus? Yeh, I know that they&rsquo;re repairing the Lodge but they rented some posh place for him and his family &mdash; $3000 a week as I recall: I wouldn&rsquo;t mind earning $3000 a week, let alone being able to afford pay it as rent. Why didn&rsquo;t he take that place and have his wife with him? Doesn&rsquo;t she want to be with him? Perhaps she had enough of seeing him every day during the 2013 election campaign. Yeh, that was different. He didn&rsquo;t want to sleep with police then. He wanted his missus in every second picture then &mdash; and his daughters. Where is she now? Have you seen her recently? &mdash; other than in Abbott&rsquo;s Christmas address, and then she looked very uncomfortable. I don&rsquo;t doubt that they&rsquo;re a fairly normal family (as &lsquo;normal&rsquo; as any family can be) but, gees, I can&rsquo;t figure it out. <br /><br /> He thinks women should be at home doing the ironing. Yeh, sometimes I think that wouldn&rsquo;t be too bad. Would save a lot of money with the child-minding. But we wouldn&rsquo;t have a home for the cheese and kisses to do the ironing in if she didn&rsquo;t work. And I don&rsquo;t need a whingeing pom telling me or the missus what she should be doing. He&rsquo;s the one who&rsquo;s making it harder for us to survive without the missus working, and now making it harder even when she is. He&rsquo;s supporting the top end of town and our wages now aren&rsquo;t even keeping up with inflation. Does he expect we should thank him for that &mdash; pig&rsquo;s a*se! (or &lsquo;ass&rsquo; as the septics would say). <br /><br /> I thought he said he would govern for all Australians but so many are missing out now. What happened to the Oz we knew where we looked after each other; where we did try to give everyone a fair go; when the government helped people who were down on their luck; when the government actually supported our local industry. Now if a factory decides to go to India or Vietnam, or some other cheap place, all the men and women under 30 who lose their jobs won&rsquo;t get a cent for six months. Don&rsquo;t tell me that&rsquo;s fair! Yeh, there might be a few bludgers avoiding work but that&rsquo;s no reason to take it out on everybody else who genuinely needs a hand. It&rsquo;s more likely to make it harder to get a job. <br /><br /> He promised that abolishing the carbon &lsquo;tax&rsquo; would help us with our cost of living and that it was his major achievement for women. I&rsquo;m sure every woman in the land has thanked him for that! Yeh, there was a bit of a reduction this year but it&rsquo;s a one-off. It will disappear in no time because electricity prices are still going up. And isn&rsquo;t he worried about the kids? What sort of planet are we leaving them unless we do something about climate change? He can talk about it all he likes but he isn&rsquo;t doing anything! He&rsquo;s off in la-la-land, off with the fairies at the bottom of the garden and there&rsquo;s no such thing as climate change in <em>that</em> garden. <br /><br /> He also promised &lsquo;no surprises&rsquo; and it really was no surprise when there were surprises. Why can&rsquo;t politicians ever tell the truth? We all know now that whenever a conservative government is elected, it will immediately drop most of its promises (that they made to us to get elected in the first place) and blame the previous Labor government for leaving a financial mess. It&rsquo;s become a game and is so predictable: yet, as voters, we go into elections with the hope that, this time, they might actually keep their promises. They don&rsquo;t have to look very far to realise why we don&rsquo;t trust them anymore. <br /><br /> Abbott reckons he hasn&rsquo;t broken any promises. He says we weren&rsquo;t listening carefully enough to what he said. You can&rsquo;t understand a pom at the best of times let alone when one like Abbott is twisting words to suit himself. How are we supposed to know what he means when half-the-time he doesn&rsquo;t seem to know himself? And he takes so long to get a sentence out that we&rsquo;ve given up listening before he&rsquo;s finished. <br /><br /> Then he tried to big-note himself on the world stage. What a joke! He said he wanted to &lsquo;shirtfront&rsquo; Putin. I bet that had the Russians quaking in their boots: more likely rushing to their dictionaries to find out what the hell he meant. Somewhat loses its effect, don&rsquo;t you think, if the other bloke has to look up a dictionary to find out what you mean before you thump him. <br /><br /> Like Howard before him, he reckons that any job is better than no job. He would say that, wouldn&rsquo;t he, when he&rsquo;s never done a day&rsquo;s labour in his life. He wouldn&rsquo;t even have a parliament house to swan about in if it wasn&rsquo;t for hundreds of labourers who built the place! But look at how he treats working people. He seems to think he&rsquo;s lord of the manor and we are just his serfs &mdash; well, serfs for him <em>and</em> his mates. They think they own us and we should be happy that they&rsquo;re providing work for us, even if some of them (and I won&rsquo;t mention names) think we should be working for $2 a day. <br /><br /> Abbott wants to bring back Workchoices &mdash; under a new name of course because his mob &lsquo;buried&rsquo; Workchoices years ago. They might have taken it off life-support but it didn&rsquo;t die. He wants more individual work contracts &mdash; no awards and conditions just what the lord of the manor is willing to give you. It&rsquo;s a bit hard to fight back on your own but that&rsquo;s Abbott&rsquo;s pommy world. And you&rsquo;ll be arrested for poaching, for trying to get a feed for your kids. I can foresee it all. <br /><br /> The rest of his mob may not be poms but they&rsquo;re just as bad. Foghorn Leghorn and Schwarzenegger having cigars when they handed down their budget that attacked working people and the poor. It reminds me of an old Irish song, &lsquo;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xECk2pNUy_Y">The rocks of Bawn</a>&rsquo; and the lyric: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">Come all you loyal comrades wherever you may be<br /> And don&rsquo;t hire with any master &lsquo;til you know what your work will be<br /> For you must rise up early from the clear daylight of dawn<br /> And I know you&rsquo;ll never be able to plough the rocks of Bawn<br /><br /> A curse attend you Sweeney for you have me nearly robbed<br /> A-sitting by your fireside with your dudeen in your gob<br /><br /></div>
(A &lsquo;dudeen&rsquo; is an old Irish clay pipe.) <br /><br /> It all fits doesn&rsquo;t it? And shows that the poms like Abbott haven&rsquo;t really changed. They kept the Irish down. They kept the Irish in Australia down in the early years. And they keep the workers down. They want us to do the impossible, like &lsquo;plough the rocks of Bawn&rsquo;, while they sit there smoking their cigars. And you wonder why I&rsquo;m bigoted! <br /><br /> I can finish with some fine English words that a wanna-be toff like pommy Abbott might understand: &lsquo;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdkFKDy5uos">You and your toffs, just naff off back to Eton</a>&rsquo;. <br /><br /> <strong>What do you think? </strong><br /><br />
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<td><span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #0000ff;"><em>TPS</em> presents this piece as a warm-up for the year ahead, just to get us back into a politcial frame of mind and boost the political spirits.</span><br /><br /> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #0000ff;"> Our first serious post for the year will appear next Sunday. But watch out later in the week for a special post about some changes for <em>TPS</em> in 2015.</span></td>
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<p><br /><br /></p>http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/01/25/Proud-to-be-a-bigot-a-view-from-the-barbie.aspx
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/01/25/Proud-to-be-a-bigot-a-view-from-the-barbie.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=aa2ab897-a81e-4703-bb36-4f9446749939Sun, 25 Jan 2015 18:30:00 +1100Abbott GovernmentPoliticsKen Wolffhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=aa2ab897-a81e-4703-bb36-4f944674993952http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/trackback.axd?id=aa2ab897-a81e-4703-bb36-4f9446749939http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/01/25/Proud-to-be-a-bigot-a-view-from-the-barbie.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/syndication.axd?post=aa2ab897-a81e-4703-bb36-4f9446749939And that was . . . 2014<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000000;"><br /> Welcome to 2015. Happy New Year from <em>The TPS Team</em>.<br /><br /> Traditionally <em>The Political Sword</em> tends to avoid too much politics and media bashing in January as in reality Australians are more interested in the beach, cricket, being with friends and complaining about how hot/cold/unusual the weather is. While it would be easy to write a piece about the less than impressive record of the Abbott Government, there are other sites already expending much effort on this &mdash; some examples are <a href="http://tonyabbottlies.com">here</a> and <a href="http://phonytonyabbott.com/lies-and-deceptions/lies-deceptions">here</a> &mdash; and in any event Ad Astra foretold the reality <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2012/02/19/Tony-Abbott-we-are-sick-of-your-lies.aspx">in 2012</a> but boasting of <em>TPS</em>&rsquo;s past achievements in the first post of the year is not a good look! However we digress. <br /><br /> It&rsquo;s often said that a week is a long time in politics. While the daily news cycle gets faster and <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/yesterdays-news-benjamin-franklin">less detailed</a>, let&rsquo;s look back at 2014 and see if there really was that much change in Australian politics during the year. <br /><br /> The newly minted Abbott Government came to power late in 2013 in part by pointing out that the leader of the other side of politics was either a liar or so controlling his supporters had to sack him. The federal government opened 2014 having to put out a minor bushfire over who was really running the country, the elected politicians or the Prime Minister&rsquo;s Chief of Staff, <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/control-freak-peta-credlin--accused-of-pulling-coalition-strings-20131204-2yqte.html">Peta Credlin</a>.<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">Senator Abetz told a Senate estimates hearing last week: "At the end of the day it was decided by the Prime Minister as to who would be appointed to my ministerial staff and to the staff of my ministerial colleagues," <br /><br /> As revealed by Fairfax, Ms Credlin has insisted that all 420 government staff appointments right down to junior electorate officers are approved by the panel. <br /><br /></div>
The &lsquo;axing&rsquo; of the &lsquo;carbon tax&rsquo; was a work in progress early in 2014. Despite promising that the repeal of the carbon pricing scheme would be one of the first actions of the Abbott Government, reality hit when it didn&rsquo;t pass the Senate. Abbott had to wait until the Senate changed to get a &lsquo;watered down&rsquo; repeal of the necessary acts of parliament through with the assistance of Clive Palmer&rsquo;s <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28339663">Palmer United Party</a>. Various utilities are now passing back the &lsquo;savings&rsquo; that were made by the repeal of the &lsquo;carbon tax&rsquo;. When Ipswich City Council in Queensland recently announced that a refund to ratepayers would be paid just in time for Christmas and average $14.04, the response was rather underwhelming according to the <a href="http://www.qt.com.au/news/readers-mixed-about-carbon-tax-rate-refund/2393138/"><em>Queensland Times</em></a>:<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">Carla Kompenhans posted: "$14; early Christmas present? Are you serious? I don't know anyone who would be excited about that. <br /><br /> "What part of Christmas will that cover exactly?" <br /><br /></div>
In 2014, Australia was the &lsquo;Chair&rsquo; of the G20 Group of Nations; consequently the Finance Ministers&rsquo; meeting was held in Cairns and the Heads of State meeting held in Brisbane during the latter part of 2014. The leadership of the Australian government (Prime Minister Abbott) was also keen to keep climate change off the agenda at the G20 meetings &mdash; much to the concern of <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/eu-unhappy-climate-change-is-off-g20-agenda/story-e6frg6xf-1226873127864">the Europeans</a>. With China and the USA announcing an agreement to actively reduce carbon emissions by up to 28% below 2005 levels on the Wednesday prior to the G20 Heads of State meeting, the subject was never going to go away. Widely reported was Obama&rsquo;s speech to University of Queensland students in suburban &lsquo;Brisvegas&rsquo; where he discussed his, China&rsquo;s and the United Nations concerns about climate change and <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/11/15/obama-ban-ki-moon-climate-g20/">carbon emissions</a>.<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">He then described the impact of climate change on Australia: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em;">Here, a climate that increases in temperature will mean more extreme and frequent storms, more flooding, rising seas that submerge Pacific islands. Here in Australia, it means longer droughts, more wildfires. The incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened. Worldwide, this past summer was the hottest on record. No nation is immune, and every nation has a responsibility to do its part. <br /><br /></div>
Obama also called on the country to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em;">And you&rsquo;ll recall at the beginning, I said the United States and Australia have a lot in common. Well, one of the things we have in common is we produce a lot of carbon. Part of it&rsquo;s this legacy of wide-open spaces and the frontier mentality, and this incredible abundance of resources. And so, historically, we have not been the most energy-efficient of nations, which means we&rsquo;ve got to step up. <br /><br /></div>
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Abbott&rsquo;s response, as reported on the <em>Mashable</em> website, was less compelling. <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">In contrast, Abbott <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/david-cameron-and-tony-abbott-joint-press-conference">told</a> reporters that the U.S. and China have a far greater responsibility to address climate change than Australia does. &ldquo;China emits some 24% of global carbon dioxide,&rdquo; Abbott told reporters in Canberra on Nov. 14. &ldquo;The U.S. emits some 15% of global carbon dioxide. By contrast, Australia&rsquo;s about 1%. So, I think it&rsquo;s important that they do get cracking when it comes to this.&rdquo; <br /><br /></div>
Despite Abbott&rsquo;s wishes, the final communiqu&eacute; from the Brisbane G20 included some action on <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2014/nov/16/g20-brisbane-day-two-kicks-off-with-climate-change-in-spotlight-live">climate change</a>. Turkey is the &lsquo;Chair&rsquo; of the G20 in 2015 and has stated support for a number of climate measures in the past. <br /><br /> No recollection on political events within Australia in 2014 would be complete without a reflection on the life of Edward Gough Whitlam. It is claimed that Gough Whitlam made the ALP electable again. Geoffrey Robinson writing on <em>The Conversation</em> <a href="http://theconversation.com/political-limits-of-today-intensify-rosy-memory-of-whitlamism-33225">website</a> suggested that the claim Whitlam was solely responsible for making Labor electable may be overblown: <br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">The truth is more complex and interesting. Whitlam was a man for his time: his achievements were representative of new and old social movements, including the emerging progressive intelligentsia, feminists, non-Anglo migrants and the working class. <br /><br /></div>
Robinson also observes<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">Like Keating or Julia Gillard, Whitlam has functioned as what cultural theorists call a &ldquo;floating signifier&rdquo; &mdash; a symbol whose power and significance is necessarily distantly connected to historical events. &ldquo;<em>It&rsquo;s Time</em>&rdquo;, &ldquo;<em>the sweetest victory of all</em>&rdquo; and the &ldquo;<em>misogyny speech</em>&rdquo; exist in a world of symbols but are none the less real for this. <br /><br /></div>
While there doesn&rsquo;t seem to be a 1972 campaign advertisement for the Liberal Party online (if you find one, please post the link below the line), the performance of then Prime Minister McMahon on Mike Willesee&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41JcRr9BC5w"><em>A Current Affair</em></a> is a stark contrast to the Labor Party&rsquo;s &lsquo;<em>It&rsquo;s Time</em>&rsquo; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jykIqQxEOw">election campaign</a> and probably explains in part why the Liberal Party was not re-elected. <br /><br /> Fast forward to November 2014, and the Victorian state election. The Liberal/National coalition was removed from office after one term by the ALP, led by Daniel Andrews, who came from behind to win the fancy office in Spring Street. The common opinion at the previous election was that the ALP (then led by John Brumby) would retain Government with a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-17/2014-victorian-election-election-preview/5821372">reduced margin</a> with the polls for the then state Liberal leader (Ted Ballieu) rising and falling in line with the corresponding falls and rises of Gillard&rsquo;s ALP government in Canberra. Ballieu had won then but didn&rsquo;t even last out the four year term as premier, being replaced by Denis Napthine soon after Rudd replaced Gillard. While Newman is still premier of Queensland, there seems to be a concern within the ranks of the LNP that Newman may also lose his seat and the <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/campbell-newman-admits-lnp-could-lose-election-20141211-124st2.html">LNP lose Government </a> early in 2015 when the next Queensland election is due. The Abbott government is significantly less popular than the ALP or in fact themselves when elected some <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/tony-abbott-is-the-problem-with-the-federal-government-poll-20141208-12247a.html">18 months ago</a>:<br /><br />
<div style="padding-left: 3em; font-size: 13px;">In opposition, Abbott liked to say that Julia Gillard was the most incompetent and untrustworthy prime minister in Australia's history. <br /><br /> The voters now have decided that they have found one that's more incompetent and just as untrustworthy. <br /><br /> "Only half of people polled said that Abbott is competent," says the Fairfax pollster, Jess Elgood of Ipsos. <br /><br /> "That's lower than for any prime minister we have figures for," a data set starting with Paul Keating in 1995. <br /><br /> Compared to Abbott's 50 per cent, the comparable figure for Gillard four months before she was deposed was 53 per cent. <br /><br /></div>
Not a lot did change in the world of Australian politics in 2014. At the start and end of the year, we have the Prime Minister&rsquo;s Chief of Staff being the news rather than managing the PM&rsquo;s office. At the end of 2014, there are claims of disagreements with <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/julie-bishop-v-peta-credlin-blame-tony-abbott/story-fncynjr2-1227152406755">Foreign Minister Bishop</a> and of ruling the government with an &lsquo;<a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbotts-peta-credlin-defence-risks-new-fight-with-colleagues-20141212-125xz0.html">iron fist</a>&rsquo;. <br /><br /> The media is still leading discussion on climate change and how to manage it (with price signals &mdash; such as a &lsquo;carbon tax&rsquo; being mentioned as an effective mechanism), and that Abbott either <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/abbott-sniffs-the-wind-on-climate-change-20141212-12660c.html">is changing</a> or <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/tony-abbott-must-shift-with-the-tide-on-climate-change-20141208-122ie7.html">should change</a> his view that &lsquo;climate change is crap&rsquo;. <br /><br /> Governments in various jurisdictions around the country are still not doing well in polling after they have been accused of lying or not being able to organise themselves &mdash; with Victoria changing government; Queensland&rsquo;s Premier implying he will lose the significant majority won at the 2012 event at the next election; and the Federal Government some 10% behind the opposition after 18 months. Australians are still complaining about the &lsquo;carbon tax&rsquo; &mdash; this time the small refunds that are gradually making their way onto invoices from its repeal; and the country has lost another &lsquo;person of renown&rsquo; in the guise of Gough Whitlam. <br /><br /> Let&rsquo;s hope that 2015 is another year of civilised discourse on <em>The Political Sword</em> and that the genuine nature of the discussions here spreads to other blog sites, the media and our civilisation in general. Prime Minister Hawke achieved more results through building a consensus than Prime Minister Whitlam did by trying to crash through. Please keep your hatred for the mozzie that bit you at the BBQ last week &mdash; we on this site and on this earth genuinely don&rsquo;t need it. <br /><br /> A bit of housekeeping to conclude this piece. <em>The TPS Team</em> will be reducing our output for January. The ability to comment &lsquo;below the line&rsquo; will be open all month and we invite relevant comment as usual. There will be some new commentary posted during January on an irregular schedule (so keep looking). We will return to our weekly (or better) schedule on 1 February 2015. Be aware it&rsquo;s not all sitting by the pool in the banana lounge for <em>The TPS Team</em>, there is usually one of us sitting near the computer with our finger poised over the &lsquo;delete&rsquo; button for those that haven&rsquo;t yet lost the hatred. <br /><br /> Happy New Year and may all you wish for come to pass. We look forward to your continuing support and comments in 2015. <br /><br /> The <em>TPS</em> Team</div>
<p><br /><br /></p>http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/01/04/And-that-was-2014.aspx
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/01/04/And-that-was-2014.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=c470101e-232f-47d0-ae77-af55b66077bbSun, 04 Jan 2015 18:30:00 +1100Abbott GovernmentPoliticsTPS Teamhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=c470101e-232f-47d0-ae77-af55b66077bb123http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/trackback.axd?id=c470101e-232f-47d0-ae77-af55b66077bbhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2015/01/04/And-that-was-2014.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/syndication.axd?post=c470101e-232f-47d0-ae77-af55b66077bbA year on TPS: 2014<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000000;"><br /> As we come to the end of another year, please forgive a little self-indulgence as the <em>TPS</em> Team discusses what <em>TPS</em> has achieved in the past 12 months.<br /><br /> It was a year in which we saw Abbott and his cronies trying to destroy the country and make us a paradise for the neo-liberals, the neo-cons and the economists that support them &mdash; and, of course, big business. We saw the worst budget in living memory and have, so far, only been saved from its full ramifications by the senate. We saw Clive Palmer appear with Al Gore to talk about the importance of climate change but, at the same time, cave in to support the repeal of the carbon price. We have seen Abbott, more through luck than design, deflect the budget issue and &lsquo;bask&rsquo; in the glory of the world stage, taking on the Russian bear and alienating our closest Asian neighbour. He has &lsquo;stopped the boats&rsquo; but also stopped government transparency in the process. He is undertaking more privatisation of government services and encouraging the states to do the same. Without openly saying so, he is pursuing a neo-liberal and economic rationalist agenda backed to the hilt by the IPA (and, as others have noted, he is, to a significant extent, following its &lsquo;<a href="https://ipa.org.au/publications/2080/be-like-gough-75-radical-ideas-to-transform-australia">hit list</a>&rsquo;). <br /><br /> Talk Turkey has made the point numerous times about the need to keep up the fight against this government and what it is doing. <br /><br /> We believe <em>TPS</em> has been doing that but not always directly. We are not a news site, and with only a few people volunteering their time behind the scenes we could never be, so we do not react to every government announcement, no matter how bad. <em>TPS</em> sometimes takes a longer view, looking at socio-political issues and the political and economic philosophies that underpin this government, as Ad Astra also did at times. <br /><br /> We published 43 pieces during 2014 over 46 weeks: those 43 pieces actually encompassed 48 postings as we had four multi-part pieces and we also posted mid-week on a couple of occasions. We had six &lsquo;guest&rsquo; writers during the year, now counting Ad Astra as a guest since he retired from full-time blogging, but 2353 and Ken provided the bulk of our pieces &mdash; 35 between them. We haven&rsquo;t bothered counting the words but, given that most pieces are between 1500 and 2500 words in length, it would be getting towards 100,000 words. Plus all the words our friends have posted in their comments. <br /><br /> We didn&rsquo;t ignore Abbott in our quest for wider truths and have launched attacks, both directly and with satire. We first asked whether Abbott <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/02/09/default.aspx">remembered the twentieth century</a> in his rush to take us back to some halcyon previous age; we wondered whether he was ever <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/07/13/default.aspx">meant to be PM</a> as he originally won his position as opposition leader by only one vote; we suggested he was a &lsquo;<a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/07/20/default.aspx">con artist</a>&rsquo; and questioned his <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/09/21/default.aspx">Humpty Dumpty words</a>; and James Wight exposed the extent of destruction wrought on our society <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/08/29/default.aspx">in just one year</a>. We presented &lsquo;<a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/04/27/default.aspx">Tiny-er-er O&rsquo;penmouth</a>&rsquo; who morphed into &lsquo;<a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/11/16/default.aspx">Tiny Napoleon O&rsquo;penmouth</a>&rsquo;. <br /><br /> The LNP and the government more broadly were also in the spotlight in David Horton&rsquo;s piece on <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/02/23/default.aspx">LNP electioneering</a>, Ad Astra&rsquo;s piece on <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/08/17/default.aspx">what underlay the budget</a>, the government&rsquo;s seeming blindness to major <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/03/23/default.aspx">issues raised at the World Economic Forum</a> at the start of the year, its <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/11/30/default.aspx">links with the IPA</a>, and the way it snuck through changes in its <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/02/27/default.aspx">approach to climate policy</a> during the 2013 Christmas/New Year break. <br /><br /> Political ethics were questioned by 2353 in several posts: he questioned the morality of <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/03/30/default.aspx">using refugees for political advantage</a>; the ethics of those who legislate hardship for many in the community but <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/05/04/default.aspx">accept expensive gifts</a> and high paid jobs requiring little work; their use of <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/07/27/default.aspx">slogans and sound bites</a> rather than taking the time actually to address issues; and asked why we allow politicians to regulate donations to their own parties when we have witnessed that <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/12/07/default.aspx">self-regulation</a> doesn&rsquo;t work for industry. Twice 2353 specifically questioned the <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/09/28/default.aspx">link between religious and political values</a> asking how politicians could claim to be religious when implementing policies that clearly <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/06/08/default.aspx">breach their religious morality</a>. As Ad Astra commented, it is a brave man who addresses the religious link to politics. <br /><br /> As we have moved from being a &lsquo;society&rsquo; to being an &lsquo;economy&rsquo;, we couldn&rsquo;t ignore the underlying economic approach of the government and the rising inequality it gives rise to. <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/06/29/default.aspx">Piketty&rsquo;s work on inequality</a> was discussed and was preceded by a piece showing how rising inequality matched <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/05/18/default.aspx">the rise of the economic rationalist approach</a>. Finally, Ken suggested that inequality wasn&rsquo;t an economic question at all but the result of <a href=" http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2014/12/14/Time-to-resurrect-witchcraft.aspx ">witchcraft</a> (presented as some dark humour to end the year.) <br /><br /> It was also suggested that economic rationalism, after 40 years, <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/05/11/default.aspx">may be on the wane</a>: pieces like 2353&rsquo;s on <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/08/10/default.aspx">modern monetary theory</a> and Kay Rollison&rsquo;s on <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/09/14/default.aspx">&lsquo;middle out&rsquo; economics</a> reinforced that there are new economic approaches emerging that may, indeed, lead to the demise of economic rationalism. <br /><br /> Kay&rsquo;s piece was also presented as an alternative approach for Labor. It was one of five pieces that addressed new approaches for Labor, including the <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/06/15/default.aspx">speech</a> Ken would like to hear and Ad Astra&rsquo;s <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/05/25/default.aspx">letter</a> that actually was sent to Bill Shorten. <br /><br /> Associated with economics, were pieces on governments&rsquo; approach to <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/10/12/default.aspx">infrastructure</a> and <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/10/19/default.aspx
">privatisation</a>.<br /><br /> Ken presented a piece on our understanding of &lsquo;<a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/08/24/default.aspx">freedom</a>&rsquo; which, at first, may have appeared something from left-field, but it was a prelude to his discussion of the lack of freedom in the <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/10/05/default.aspx">free market</a> and the loss of <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/11/02/default.aspx">social responsibility</a> as the neo-liberal concept of freedom, embracing individual self-interest, took over political thinking. <br /><br /> We also briefly discussed <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/08/03/default.aspx">Aboriginal affairs</a>, the role of <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/10/26/default.aspx">unions</a> and the role of <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/06/22/default.aspx">experts</a>.<br /><br /> We prophesised the future with David Horton&rsquo;s piece correctly suggesting that conservative governments resort to war in their quest for popularity; Ken&rsquo;s piece on Abbott&rsquo;s efforts to take us back in time foreseeing that coal would become more, not less, important in Abbott&rsquo;s world; and 2353, in &lsquo;<a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/02/16/default.aspx">The thought thief</a>&rsquo;, providing a fair reflection of what did eventuate from Pyne&rsquo;s review of the national curriculum. <br /><br /> The one area we have been lacking this year is putting the media to the sword, other than for <a href="http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/2014/04/13/default.aspx">Jan&rsquo;s two-part piece</a>. Perhaps that is because some segments of the media now seem to be doing a better job: Abbott&rsquo;s broken promises and the down-side of the budget were more widely reported (but still not so much in News Ltd papers). It has been our commenters who have continued to point out the flaws in the media&rsquo;s approach, including the ABC&rsquo;s attempts at so-called &lsquo;balance&rsquo;. <br /><br /> And throughout the year, Casablanca has continued to provide us with numerous links relevant to each post, as well as other news of the day. <br /><br /> We trust we have continued Ad Astra&rsquo;s tradition by putting the sword to Abbott as prime minister, the government and its policies more generally, its political ethics, its political and economic philosophy, and the approach of the economic rationalists and neo-liberals that support it. <br /><br /> Take the time during the break to revisit some of the pieces that were posted during the year and see what you think now that the year is coming to an end and you can see how the different posts tie together. If you have topics you would like us to address in 2015 please let us know, either in a comment or in a message to the Team (the Contact tab above). <br /><br /> This thread will stay open until 4 January, when another piece will be posted with an extended thread, so please post any new comments and insights you may have. And, as we asked last year, please also feel free to post any video, music video or photo that takes your fancy and that you may wish to share, with a short story as to why you selected it. <br /><br /> Wishing all our lurkers and commenters a happy festive season and looking forward to you being back with us in 2015. <br /><br /> The <em>TPS</em> Team</div>
<p><br /><br /></p>http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2014/12/21/A-year-on-TPS-2014.aspx
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2014/12/21/A-year-on-TPS-2014.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=dadaec12-4bbe-44be-bf3c-e0167dfd8c09Sun, 21 Dec 2014 18:30:00 +1100Abbott GovernmentEconomicsLaborMediaNational eventsPoliticsTPS Teamhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=dadaec12-4bbe-44be-bf3c-e0167dfd8c0954http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/trackback.axd?id=dadaec12-4bbe-44be-bf3c-e0167dfd8c09http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2014/12/21/A-year-on-TPS-2014.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/syndication.axd?post=dadaec12-4bbe-44be-bf3c-e0167dfd8c09Time to resurrect witchcraft<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000000;"><br /> Back in 1971 I wrote my honours thesis for social anthropology at Sydney University. Its theme was a link between witchcraft/sorcery beliefs and egalitarianism in native and peasant communities around the world. Given discussion earlier this year about inequality, I believe it has a relevance. <br /><br /> Its principle argument went something like this: <br /><br /> The basic concept of egalitarianism is that everyone is equal and has an equal share of abilities and resources. Of course, in reality, this is never quite true. And in those native and peasant communities, witchcraft was a common approach to explain the differences. <br /><br /> It worked in a number of ways. Those who rose above the norm and those who fell below it were prone to witchcraft, either being attacked by it or accused of it. (Please note that when I say witchcraft, I include sorcery &mdash; there was a difference in the anthropological literature of the time that wasn&rsquo;t relevant to my thesis nor to this discussion. Also, I use the term &lsquo;witch&rsquo; to include both males and females.) <br /><br /> Those who rose above the norm could include those who were &lsquo;conspicuously fortunate&rsquo;, those who had outstanding innate talent (such as a Bradman or a Mozart), and even the &lsquo;big men&rsquo; of the village. <br /><br /> For those with talent, it helped explain why they were so good but it also helped keep them within the bounds of the community. While it may only be <em>thought</em> that their talent was a result of witchcraft, if they did not use that talent in acceptable ways, or if they boasted of their talent, it could become a public accusation, leading to public sanction. <br /><br /> Similarly &lsquo;big men&rsquo; were recognised as being important for the community, particularly in its dealings with other communities, but they had to maintain the welfare and best interests of their own community or they would also be publicly accused of being witches. <br /><br /> Being &lsquo;conspicuously fortunate&rsquo; is clearly an egalitarian crime. The threat of being accused of being a witch helped ensure that those people spread their wealth in socially acceptable ways &mdash; catering for large ceremonies, for example. <br /><br /> Those at the bottom (below the social norm) were rarely attacked by witchcraft but prone to being identified as witches, the ones paid to provide the potions or spells. This often related to an illness occurring after an argument between two people (and the argument most often related to one person having more than the other). Both sides of the issue would then have to be addressed, the argument (and which party paid the witch), and the role of the witch. <br /><br /> Some of this demonisation of those at the bottom, those falling below the social norms, can be seen in the European and North American witch trials. Elderly widows struggling to survive on their own and young women perceived as promiscuous were among those more commonly accused. <br /><br /> I saw this operating like three concentric circles reflecting the values of the community. The majority of people fell within the central circle. Then those who were different, the probable witches, operated within the second circle. As long as they remained within that second circle they could be tolerated in a somewhat ambivalent way, but if they moved beyond that second circle they had moved too far beyond the bounds of egalitarianism and would face sanction, exile, or even execution. <br /><br /> I read a simple example of this in a story by Camara Laye about an African childhood. A boy was with his uncle, the village headman, and as they worked their way along a field they were moving ahead of the other men. Then the uncle slowed down and the boy pointed out that the others were catching up. His uncle told him it was not good to get too far ahead. In my terms, he was reaching a boundary where greater success (his speed working the field) would be seen as extreme and probably the result of witchcraft. <br /><br /> Witchcraft in this way acts as a sanction to acceptable behaviour. One tries to stay within the egalitarian norms, even if those norms are somewhat extended within the second circle, so as to avoid witchcraft. <br /><br /> So there you have it in a nutshell. What does this mean for our society? <br /><br /> We no longer believe in witchcraft but perhaps we should. <br /><br /> The majority of us sit comfortably in the middle (within the central circle), follow social norms, at least within acceptable bounds, and are free from accusations of witchcraft. We understand disease much better and no longer need witchcraft or other supernatural sources to explain it. Although it is interesting that arguments or disagreements and the associated stress can lead to illness &mdash; perhaps we still need witchcraft to explain that and should focus more on the argument as the root cause of the illness so that the argument is dealt with before a cure is found. <br /><br /> We are much better off in terms of our material possessions but still find blatant displays of wealth unacceptable. When someone builds a house twice as big as those around it, or suddenly appears in a Porsche when everyone else has a Holden or a Toyota, we no longer accuse them of witchcraft but we may think they are crooks, or dealing drugs, or something similar. <br /><br /> We elevate and praise our successful artists and sports people but only so long as they don&rsquo;t abuse their position or become &lsquo;big heads&rsquo;. When that happens they become dangerous to our social stability and an element of witchcraft comes back into play. They are seen not to have played by the rules and need to be brought down or cast out. <br /><br /> We accept that we need leaders and powerful people to protect us but are equivocal about their power. We have a democracy which is supposed to control that power but sometimes we wonder whether it does. Of course, we are outraged when we find the powerful misusing their power to increase their own wealth but, after a brief time, nothing really changes and we await the next occurrence.<br /><br /> Our society has its share of people who drop below the norm and they are often perceived as a threat. I think sometimes it is because it is a reminder that there but for a bit of luck goes any one of us. We are not always comfortable knowing they are there but generally we wish to help them back within the inner circle. Many, however, in their day-to-day activities, will avoid them if they can. <br /><br /> The poor and outcast may no longer be witches but they are demonised by the rich, the LNP government and the economic rationalists: they are too lazy to be helped. We are told they use the services and taxes of the core circle and reduce the services available for the rest of us within that circle. They are told by the rich and powerful that they can never get back into that inner circle except by their own efforts, that they are undeserving of help, but that approach is not fully in accord with the egalitarian values of the central circle, so the rich and powerful are treading dangerous ground. <br /><br /> And we have &lsquo;the one per cent&rsquo; sitting at the top with all their wealth. How did they get there? Where I grew up, the common view was that almost all who were fabulously rich must have done something wrong, not necessarily illegal but certainly breaching the norms &mdash; a few deals that sailed close to the edge of legality, or a few mates abandoned or &lsquo;knifed&rsquo; along the way, a bit of insider knowledge, tax avoidance (or should I say tax minimisation so as not to be sued) and so on. Of course, only the rich have this special knowledge and the resources to implement it. <br /><br /> As a society we seem to struggle to find good explanations for these situations, and perhaps find some of them puzzling, even troubling, but witchcraft explains them all. <br /><br /> The conspicuous displays of wealth are obviously the result of witchcraft. An ordinary person in the inner circle cannot get their Porsche any other way. They don&rsquo;t need to be crooks, just witches. When they know that such conspicuous displays can lead to accusations of witchcraft, they will be less likely to step so far out of line. <br /><br /> The same goes for our successful artists and sports people. They will behave in more acceptable ways if they know that they are always on the verge of a witchcraft accusation because of their &lsquo;unnatural&rsquo; talent. <br /><br /> Our leaders may need their witchcraft to counter the witchcraft of other leaders but if they know that <em>we know</em> they are witches then they may be more careful how they use that power. They will know they need to support the central circle or face public accusation and the sanctions that follow. <br /><br /> If those who drop below the norm are thought more likely to be witches, perhaps we will work harder to bring them back into the central circle and so tame their witchcraft. And we will work to keep them in the inner circle because if they drop back again, anything could happen &mdash; we might all be turned into sheep (if the rich and powerful have not already turned us into sheep). <br /><br /> Alternately, we may draw on their magic to bring the rich and the powerful into line. While they are there, they are also a threat to those at the top &mdash; a reminder that the second circle belongs not just to the rich and powerful but the poor and outcast, that they are in reality in the same situation, operating outside the core values of the society. The poor and outcast have their own spells to attack the rich and powerful and it is a potential battleground for witchcraft. <br /><br /> Finally, how did the super-rich gain all that wealth? Bugger economics! &mdash; it was witchcraft pure and simple. They have the secret knowledge that they share only within their cabal.<br /><br /> It follows that they demonise and accuse those at the bottom, the others occupying those outer circles, of witchcraft because they are so conscious of it and fear being accused themselves. The rich and powerful (and the LNP) persecute these other witches to divert attention from their own witchcraft.<br /><br /> <em>I say it is time to bring back witchcraft</em>. It will support our egalitarianism and help us explain so much. We would not need economic arguments to explain inequality, just witchcraft.<br /><br /> We can bring back the witch trials and place &lsquo;the one percent&rsquo; before the Witchfinder General. Then let them try to explain that they did not achieve their wealth by witchcraft. We can ask the banks and global corporations to show that, in making their super profits, they have not beguiled us with witchcraft. We can demand that the current prime minister justify his accusations of witchcraft against a certain red-haired former prime minister and, if he can&rsquo;t, it follows that he, himself, was using witchcraft. <br /><br /> There may be many executions to follow. I think, however, that I could be tempted to become a <em>tricoteuse</em> at the bonfires. <br /><br /> <strong>What do you think?</strong></div>
<p><br /><br /></p>http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2014/12/14/Time-to-resurrect-witchcraft.aspx
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2014/12/14/Time-to-resurrect-witchcraft.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=ed26b00e-d871-44ed-87a1-0de443377afdSun, 14 Dec 2014 18:30:00 +1100Ken Wolffhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post.aspx?id=ed26b00e-d871-44ed-87a1-0de443377afd21http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/trackback.axd?id=ed26b00e-d871-44ed-87a1-0de443377afdhttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2014/12/14/Time-to-resurrect-witchcraft.aspx#commenthttp://www.thepoliticalsword.com/syndication.axd?post=ed26b00e-d871-44ed-87a1-0de443377afd